Drop It in Their Laps is a blast from the past encompassing new wave, pub rock and disco in an energetic mixture of flavors that might at first seem out of date. The album opens with a melodramatic roll of thunder that signposts the seriousness with which the songs will be treated, despite their often kitschy elements. Big singalong choruses, epic but nonsensical lyrics, catchy hooks and frequent handclaps follow as the Cops resurrect old genres with earnest enjoyment. There's a determination to have fun with the material and a genuine love for it -- yes, even the disco -- that shines through infectiously. "Out of the Fridge/Into the Fire" takes a beat like an old-school Furious Five rap song and puts Simon Carter's vocal blend of Elvis Costello and Elton John over the top -- way over the top in fact -- singing about dying angels and blood-red skies. The album's highlight, "Call Me Anytime," is an ode to Miami that owes debts to Cold Chisel and the Police (obviously an important point of reference, given their name). Miami, and the motif of palm trees, recur in "Respectagon," though it's a little harder to decide what this song is an ode to as the amazingly nonsensical lyrics return: "We all live in a respectagon/we all chew on the same words/you can eat 'em in a restaurant." Drop It in Their Laps abandons unity in favor of sounding like you're changing radio stations between songs, but in an age when retro-rock bands are content to mine the back catalogs of the same two or three acts, the Cops come off as anything but stale, despite their decidedly retro influences.
© Jody Macgregor /TiVo