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- Summary: The sophomore album for Joan Wasser features Rufus Wainwright as a guest vocalist on one track.
- Record Label: Reveal
- Genre(s): Indie, Rock, Alternative
- More Details and Credits »
Top Track
| To be loved | |
|---|---|
| I'm so happy to be loved throw me down and light me there 'cause I'm an awful mess and you love me too I haven't a care we're eternity oh, I feel the... | See the rest of the song lyrics |
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 19
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Mixed: 3 out of 19
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Negative: 0 out of 19
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While "Real Life" was so fully realized that it seemed to have a life of its own, To Survive feels more like songs written by somebody than something that materialized because it had to.
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An uncompromising work from an uncompromising artist, To Survive doesn't zip or sizzle. But yield to its gentle undulations and its hypnotic, brooding and utterly original genius becomes clear.
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On To Survive, her second release under the moniker Joan As Police Woman, she casts the same torchy, seductive, chamber-pop spell that made her debut "Real Life" such a pleasure, only doing it even more effectively this time.
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It's much darker, more contemplative territory; the songs are like intimate nocturnes located somewhere between classical and soul.
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Wasser’s a collaborator at heart (she was a charter member of the Dambuilders and worked with Lou Reed, Antony & the Johnsons and Rufus Wainwright, who guests on “To America”), and she sounds most natural when she’s backed by horns and keys and backing vox and slinky grooves.
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While it doesn’t quite bring one up short as "Real Life" did, To Survive does something arguably even more valuable; it shows that the debut was in no way a fluke, and that Joan As Police Woman are in this for the long haul.
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It starts strong (with the pensive 'Honor Wishes'), and ends on a high note (with the title track leading into 'To America,' Wasser's duet with Wainwright). Unfortunately, the middle of the album, burdened with turgid low points.
Score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 3
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Mixed: 0 out of 3
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Negative: 0 out of 3
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ChrisCJun 19, 2008
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mattallenJun 16, 2008
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DejanS.Aug 20, 2008Not good as debut, but hell yes, this album is some kind of magic dream!
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