Cola’s ‘Cost of Living Adjustment’ Is an Exercise in Shedding Pretense

For two albums, the Montreal trio Cola let their bureaucratic name hang in awkward silence. On Cost of Living Adjustment, they come clean: it stands for the economic clause, not the drink. The admission, mirrored in the music, strips away a layer of mystique and leaves behind a sharper band.

The album pairs ornate, often breezy guitar lines with lyrics bleak enough for a black-metal record. Tracks like “Forced Position” and “Havelock Country” carry echoes of Gang of Four and Protomartyr, but the band no longer lean on those references. There’s a harmonic lift to “Much of a Muchness” and a resigned momentum to “Skywriter’s Sigh” that feel earned, not borrowed. Cola sound less interested in genre posturing and more focused on direct emotional delivery.

The shift resembles Ghost’s decision to drop the Papal stage act: once the facade dissolves, the music can breathe. On Cost of Living Adjustment, Cola are neither rageful nor detached. They’ve found a space where clarity doesn’t mean softness, and where the aesthetic of post-punk serves the song, not the other way around.