Cola
Cost of Living Adjustment
FIRE TALK
Canadian post-punk trio Cola have returned as self-described maximalists with their latest project Cost of Living Adjustment, which is appropriately named for our current inflationary times (Google the acronym “COLA” and you’ll be inundated with links to governmental documents and personal finance webpages instead of the band or beverage—surely a recession indicator). Cola’s first two albums are what many listeners have come to expect from the post-punk genre in the 2020s, and although the band does it well, the novel direction of this latest project showcases their unique vision and growth as musicians. Here, they mix the angularity and simplicity of their previous records with an added sense of depth, layers of sound that transform post-punk into something much lusher and richer.
Cost of Living Adjustment has a production style that lands somewhere between Fontaines D.C. and Public Image Ltd. as the band places their past lo-fi style on the backburner and plays with more progressive ideas. Tim Darcy’s penchant for singing in abstract images like splatter paintings sets the tone with a colorful strangeness in soundwave form. Opener “Forced Position” starts with the ringing of a forlorn-sounding suspended chord coming from an electric guitar doused in 1980s-era delay. “Guess Paris is burning, burning down / I can see it burning on its own,” Darcy sings matter-of-factly, a powerful political image of destruction that almost sounds like it might be written by the Minutemen’s D. Boon.
“Hedgesitting” continues to use that rich, delayed guitar sound, an effect that Cola executes perfectly throughout this record. They never lean on these effects too much, opting for variety on their pedal board over having a set sound. “Fainting Spells” and “Haveluck Country” revert to that former Cola sound, though this step backward is only temporary; on “Conflagration Mindset,” the trio gets their most experimental as the intro energetically escalates krautrock-like synth and drums into a cathartic release when the guitar finally hits. Cost of Living Adjustment works best when the band pushes itself out of its comfort zone like this. Rather than altering the bits in their formula that still work, Cola embellish them to create a new, fertile reality full of interesting turns.
