Cola always felt like a comedown. By the time Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy’s previous band, Ought, came to an end in 2021, the Montreal group had morphed from nervy, scrappy post-punk to grandiose art rock. Cola, formed with drummer Evan Cartwright, shifted to something stark and simple with the terse indie rock of their debut, 2022’s Deep in View and its slightly lusher follow-up, 2024’s The Gloss. On their third album, Cost of Living Adjustment, Cola have embraced, if not maximalism, then at least letting go of restraint.
The trio is still enthralled by the pointed edges of post-punk that serve as the skeleton of most of their tracks. Yet, from the moment that opener “Forced Position” kicks in, you can tell something has changed. Cartwright’s anxious rhythm plays two beats faster than everyone else; Stidworthy’s rumbling basslines pull the song forward and cement its tension; a mesh of distortion and reverb coats Darcy’s guitar, letting it shimmer and blister simultaneously. It’s startling to hear Cola so energized, and the band carries that momentum through the whole album.
There’s a newfound confidence to sprawl out in unexpected, noisy ways. “Hedgesitting” opens with a slowed-down drum break before launching into some of the heaviest and catchiest riffs Cola have ever written, as Darcy knicks Kim Gordon’s delivery on “Teenage Riot” for the chorus. “Third Double” is the closest the band has come to shoegaze, the fuzz of its outro threatening to engulf the whole song. Even quieter touches like the minor-key mandolin plucking that hoovers throughout “Fainting Spells” lend depth to the track, giving the music an eerie and off-balance feel.
This musical complexity serves as a counterpoint to the hellish stasis of the modern world they describe. Besides serving as a reminder that Cola are not named after a soft drink, Cost of Living Adjustment refers to the pay increase workers are supposed to receive to deal with inflation or economic upheaval. Taken more loosely, it can be read as the compromises people must increasingly make to keep their heads above water in a world that doesn’t mind if they drown. “And when you get it, it’s never enough/That said, I will take it,” Darcy dryly admits on “Satre-torial,” keen to make concessions before realizing halfway through, “Oh shit, there’s no one left alive.”
Darcy has addressed politics in his lyrics since day one, but here they calcify into a prickly, dark humor that’s impossible to ignore: a rough mix of winking apathy and despondency. He still delights in the opaque, never meeting a straightforward idea he can’t shift in an unexpected direction or obfuscate (“Let’s get down to work/Someone has to do it/It’s all eros and ones, all digits no thumbs” is a particularly memorable stanza). Yet things have gotten so rough that even the surreal seems to have lost its appeal. “Make room for sorrow it will make room for you/Someone’s saving me a bar stool, too,” Darcy admits on the album’s most melancholic track “Conflagration Mindset.” It sounds like his characteristic wryness has depleted, and all that’s left is weary sincerity. Their raw core more exposed than ever, Cola have no choice now but to embrace their wounds.
