Cola announce new album ‘Cost of Living Adjustment’

Montreal trio Cola are back with details of their third album, ‘Cost of Living Adjustment,’ landing May 8th via Fire Talk Records. Alongside the announcement comes the album’s lead single, Hedgesitting, paired with a beautifully understated video directed by Kristina Pedersen.

If you’ve been following Cola’s evolution post-Ought, you already know the buzz is real. Critics have been locked in: Rolling Stone praised the band’s “own fun little take on modern alienation,” while Pitchfork highlighted Tim Darcy’s uncanny ability to pull meaning from the everyday. Over at The Guardian, the verdict was clear—Cola aren’t just carrying a legacy, they’re sharpening it.

‘Cost of Living Adjustment’ (or C.O.L.A., as the band cheekily abbreviates it) feels almost self-titled in spirit. It’s a record obsessed with the push and pull of modern life: nostalgia and anxiety, ideology and instinct, the slow grind versus the thrill of the unknown. It’s intricate, a little strange, often gorgeous—and easily the band’s most refined work to date.

Cola have long been associated with “tasteful minimalism,” but here they quietly flip the script. C.O.L.A. is their most maximalist album yet, even if it doesn’t shout about it. Hedgesitting, for example, layers live drums with sampled loops, creating a lush, woozy momentum that sneaks up on you. The song feels like a deconstructed, late-night cousin of Disintegration, with a soft spot for the wistful indie pop lineage of Sarah Records. Darcy’s opening line—“When you were young, you came to make it”—lands like a half-remembered promise.

True to form, the album was built collaboratively. Ideas are sketched in isolation, then reassembled together in the studio. Hedgesitting began life as a set of chords from Darcy before being reshaped collectively, with bassist Ben Stidworthy even remixing elements right before recording. That fluid exchange—passing songs around and rebuilding them—is baked into Cola’s DNA.

Watch: Cola – Hedgesitting (Official Video)

One of the biggest shifts on ‘Cost of Living Adjustment’ is how melody leads the charge. Darcy steps away from the sprechgesang delivery of earlier releases, letting vocal lines sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the album’s other melodic elements. The lyrics remain sharp and poetic, just more entwined with the music. As Darcy jokes, it’s not exactly a Cocteau Twins pivot—but the balance feels intentional and fresh.

The result is an album that’s in constant conversation with itself. Every sound has space, even when things stretch and shimmer. Tracks like Skywriter’s Sigh crackle and glow, flirting with the sublime. It’s abstract without being cold, experimental without losing its emotional pull. Think less chaos, more careful chiseling.

Simply put, ‘Cost of Living Adjustment’ is Cola at their most confident—thoughtful, restless, and quietly stunning.

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Pre-order: ‘Cost of Living Adjustment’

‘Cost of Living Adjustment’ track list

1. Forced Position
2. Hedgesitting
3. Fainting Spells
4. Haveluck Country
5. Satre-torial
6. Polished Knives
7. Much of a Muchness
8. Third Double
9. Conflagration Mindset
10. Favoured Over The Ride
11. Skywriter’s Sigh