Cola music the cost-of-living adjustment

Inspiration can come at any time, even in the midst of eighty thousand people protesting against rising university fees. It happened in 2012 to four students who had started a band in Montreal some time before, but became overwhelmed by the 'revolutionary spirit of radicalism and adventure' that they began to infuse into their post-punk. Ought were a wonderful meteor on the international indie scene. After a couple of EPs, they enchanted critics and audiences with their first two albums: 2014's 'More Than Any Other Day' set caustic lyrics to music with an intellectual edge through echoes of Television, Sonic Youth and Fugazi. The following year, 'Sun Coming Down' sublimated the quartet's talent, strengthened by cinematic tracks capable of giving additional depth to the spoken word alternating with Tim Darcy's melody. In 2018, the Ought showed with 'Room Inside the World' their ability to synthesise, moving within a tighter perimeter of track duration, but without renouncing to further expand the range of sonic possibilities.

In 2021, two pieces of news suddenly arrived: Ought was no longer a band, while the two members Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy founded a new one with drummer Evan Cartwright. The one founded ten years earlier was a band that started out for fun and ended up becoming a live machine. Pity, to have such intense and centred ones. The new chapter is that of Cola, who in 2022 released 'Deep in View' and two years later 'The Gloss', two albums in which the post-punk matrix is firmly anchored in the centre of the room. Orbiting around it is an art-punk imbued with electronics that pushes towards experimentation but allows itself to be crossed by sudden melodies. But the band's true manifesto arrives in 2026 with 'The Cost of Living Adjustment', a polaroid of our present where capitalism crushes socialist yearnings and nostalgia has become an integral part of everyday life.

There is an eerie serenity in the stanzas of the opening 'Forced Position' that becomes tense in the refrains, while Darcy flies over the variations with her abstract poetic flow, built on repetition and atmospheric images: rain, thunderstorm, lightning, 'something breaking'. The Stone Roses congealed by the Cure hover in "Hedgesitting", while the haunting "Fainting Spells" is an acceptance of one's own vulnerability. An artificial and ambiguous reality is reflected in the landscape of "Haveluck Country", just as "Satre-torial" returns the image of a dull bourgeoisie, obsessed with its own status. The opening of "Polished Knives" contrasts with darker stanzas reminiscent of Dry Cleaning's chiaroscuro, and it is instead the Strokes who echo through the folds of "Much of a Muchness", where there is a patient to save. Cola enjoy forays into shoegaze ("Third Double") and electronica ("Conflagration Mindset"), before returning to their sonic and emotional geometry with the escapist "Favoured Over the Ride". The iridescent 'Skywriter's Sigh' leaves us with a dutiful warning: 'Don't romanticise a better time'. Here Darcy gives Morrissey a run for his money and bids farewell with yet another interesting album of his career.