In the final moments of “Dead Friends,” the penultimate track of the new Lighten Up, Bad Cop Bad Cop guitarist-vocalist Stacey Dee sings, “So try to love your life, while you can.”
These words serve as a powerful thesis for Lighten Up (out September 19, 2025 on Fat Wreck Chords/Hopeless Records) the SoCal punk group’s fourth full-length. The album paints a striking portrait of life’s hard-won victories and hard-fought losses.
“I think that’s what I write my songs about,” Dee says. “Life is hard, but it’s still beautiful. Stop picking the hard shit to look at—look at the beautiful stuff too. Lighten up.”
Dee and her bandmates—bassist-vocalist Linh Le, drummer-vocalist Myra Gallarza, and guitarist Alex Windsor—know what it takes to persevere. Resilience surfaces throughout Lighten Up. In “Strugglinh,” Le confronts self-doubt and finds strength, and in “See Me Now,” she turns family loss into triumph. “Straight Out of Detox” details a transformational night in Dee’s life, and“Note to Self” is her reminder to keep things in perspective, aided by iconic LA underground rapper 2mex.