The Model Rockets
Tell The Kids The Cops Are Here (Not Lame)
by Marc Hirsh

originally published in Space City Rock, Winter 2005

I love power pop, but it’s pretty easy to admit that a lot of it isn’t much more than the sum of its parts. And so it goes for the Model Rockets’ Tell The Kids The Cops Are Here, which scoops up sonic remnants of the subgenre’s forebears and shows them off proudly. When they aren’t sounding like the second coming of the Pursuit of Happiness, they’re trotting out the solo from “The Bells Of Rhymney” as the basis for the verse of “Nanny’s Caddy,” installing Garth Hudson’s organ into the Beatles ’66 for “International Airplane” and making like Let’s Active playing “I Can Hear The Grass Grow” for “The Dress Up Girls.” That song, almost classically structured and possessed of a worthy “rum tum tum tum” backing vocal hook, is the best thing on the album, but it’s also the first, which creates its own problems. Also worrisome is lead singer John Ramberg’s tendency to go kinda flat when he reaches for the top of his range, and he reaches for it a lot; it’s particularly noticeable in the choruses to “Honeymoon Home” and “Candy Aquamarine.” With the exception of the latter song (whose “buttonhole girls” lyric is such an obvious hook that it sounds like it’s been waiting years for someone to pick up on it), “The Dress Up Girls” and the sharp “Poor Little Lamb,” Tell The Kids is crazy tuneful without being particularly catchy. It’s a kick while it’s on, though.

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