Joan as Police Woman returns with a new album, Damned Devotion, and it finds Joan Wasser at her rawest. It takes her back to her musical roots, somewhat but don't for one second thing this is a step backwards.

For her legions of fans this will be a stripped back affair with laid back lyrics and tunes. Of the album's 12 songs (43 min, 14 sec) 'Rely On' is instantly accessible and arguably the main highlight here.

While I admit that I did enjoy this album, I did find it seemed to suck the energy out of me. It's not the sort of LP I'd happily play in the car for fear of falling asleep to it. I'm not saying it's dull, it's just that every time I listened to this I was suddenly aware of a strange silence: the album had finished. However, I couldn't recall how long I'd been enveloped by silence and I had a hard time remembering what I had been listening to.

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Nick Smithson