From his first album, Deep in View (2022), the Montreal trio Cola has drawn comparisons with the sound and style of Tom Verlaine — solo and in the group Television —, and The Gloss will certainly not succeed in chasing them away. So much the better: Cola assumes everything, his influences as well as his attitude, always sarcastic, his contradictions too, having fun stringing together a rough title (Tracing Hallmarks from the opening, with the notch guitars of singer Tim Darcy) with a softness, here the dreamlike Pulling Quotes, powered by a three-note bassline, courtesy of Ben Stidworthy, and the restrained thumping of drummer Evan Cartwright. The tension rises and falls constantly on this album containing a few nuggets of melodic post-punk songs, the heady Down to Sizethe melancholic and airy Keys Down if You Staythis Nice Try so beautiful, so delicate, that the trio followed by two fireboats (Bell Wheel And Bitter Melon), as if to prove to us that they are above all a slightly sloppy rock group. In concert July 20 at the Fairmount Theater.
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