Joan As Police Woman is essentially a solo project for Joan Wasser, a female singer-songwriter who has collaborated with Rufus Wainwright and Antony & The Johnsons, as well as plying her trade with lesser known acts such as The Dambuilders, Black Beetle and Those B astard Souls.
This self-titled debut is the type of record you’d expect from someone who has been a close friend (and musical kindred spirit) of Antony, Rufus and co. – lavish, theatrical and brimming with soul. A touch too languid for some tastes, perhaps, it nonetheless contains several moments of great beauty.
The opener ‘Real Life’ has a simple, childlike elegance – a waltz-time piano ballad, with raindrop strings, and an implacably cool vocal from Wasser. ‘Eternal Flame’ is even more impressive (almost as good as The Bangles’ song of the same name, in fact) – rich soul music, given added edge by some needling alt-rock guitars. Indeed, much of the album merges US indie-rock’s oddball sensibilities with that classic Motown sweep, frequently to devastating effect.
Best of all is ‘I Defy’ – a brash, brassy number, with a crisp beat and some stomping piano. Guest vocals from Antony himself are still, to these ears, unnecessarily quavering and disorientating, but the rich musical backdrop more than atones for it.
There are a few missteps, though. ‘The Ride’ is cloying and saccharine – here, the lush drama that pervades most of the record swells into rather graceless melodrama. Joan As Police Woman fails to finish on a high, too – the closing couplet of tracks (‘Anyone’ and ‘We Don’t Own It’), bring the album to a disappointingly dour conclusion. For someone so pre-occupied with the theatrical, Wasser still has a bit to learn about leaving the audience wanting more. If she'd closed proceedings two songs earlier, this would have been a tantalisingly short, and wonderfully sweet treat.