Bad Cop/Bad Cop: Boss Lady

Bad Cop/Bad Cop’s first single for Fat Wreck, Boss Lady, is a fiery first statement. The band charges through these songs with a combination of punk fury and pop sweetness. Jennie Cotteril and Stacey Dee offer propulsive guitar interplay, lacing razorwire hooks around thick power chords, while Linh Li and Myra Gallarza bolster these speeding tracks with speedy, muscular rhythms. The four songs here are all equally catchy, but it’s the resilience in these songs that is most striking. “My Life” is a clear-eyed declaration of intent, where “we won’t apologize for causing a scene.” Meanwhile, “Cucumber” could be a pining lost love song, if Cotteril and Dee didn’t sound so strong, like they could move on at a moment’s notice. “Rodeo” offers the same mix of steely stare and halfway grin. These songs sound strong because Cotteril and Dee mesh airtight vocal harmonies with snarling guitars so well, and the confidence comes out of that mix at every turn. The brief closer “Asshole” cuts away at the band’s strength and intention a bit, as it seems to judge its subject (by a haircut) much in the way Bad Cop/Bad Cop sings against in the other three tracks. But this band is a welcome and solid new voice to the Fat Wreck fold, and the pop-punk genre as a whole. Boss Lady is a good introduction, and now that we’ve met Bad Cop/Bad Cop, let’s see what’s next.