To Survive

If To Survive is any indication, Joan Wasser's life after Real Life is calmer, but no less thoughtful, than it was before her beautifully stormy debut album. Real Life was a major statement, filled with a lifetime's worth of catharsis. To Survive doesn't try for that scope -- as the title suggests, these songs are about day to day concerns that are no less vital: aloneness, togetherness, love, hope, and righteous anger. However, Joan As Police Woman's "beauty is the new punk rock" aesthetic is used just as powerfully here, with the same kind of delicate bravery and strong vulnerability.

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. On those terms, the album is very, very good, and when it closes with fireworks on "To America," it might not be a completely happy ending, but it shows that in order to survive real life, it's necessary to embrace the uplifting parts of it as well as the desperate ones.