Cola – Conflagration Mindset
Montreal trio Cola — Tim Darcy (vocals/guitar), Ben Stidworthy (bass) and Evan Cartwright (drums) — release their third album Cost of Living Adjustment on May 8 via Fire Talk. Darcy and Stidworthy came up together in Ought before founding Cola with Cartwright in 2021, and this follows 2024’s The Gloss. “Conflagration Mindset” is the second single, after W08’s “Hedgesitting”.
Darcy lost his home in the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, and the track was written in the aftermath. “When you go through something like that, people come out of the woodwork and share their stories with you”, he says. “I learned a lot about house fires in general and the way they can reshape lives and whole communities. Because of that it’s really a song about the nature of loss in general”. The title — his words — became “a jumping off point for one of the more personal songs on this record, though I certainly pulled from an array of experiences”.
The production makes the most of that tension. The track started as a synth and drum machine sketch Cartwright circulated, and Darcy and Stidworthy worked out how to translate his synth parts onto bass and guitar — blending synthetic and live versions in the studio, keeping both. What you get is something that opens sparse and cold, Cartwright’s filtered percussion underneath, before Stidworthy’s bassline comes in steady and Darcy’s vocals settle into the track’s particular brand of tightly wound calm. The Sonic Youth and Pavement comparisons are there if you want them, but the song is quieter than either, more interior.
What caught my ear is that the arrangement never pushes for catharsis — it holds its emotional temperature all the way through, which given the subject feels like the right call. Cartwright describes the album as “deepening what we’ve been doing”, and on this track at least, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Tour Dates:
North America:
- July 8 — Toronto, ON — Longboat Hall
- July 9 — Detroit, MI — Lager House
- July 10 — Chicago, IL — Empty Bottle
- July 11 — Minneapolis, MN — Zhora Darling
- July 12 — Milwaukee, WI — Cactus Club
- July 15 — Cleveland, OH — Grog Shop
- July 16 — Washington, DC — Songbyrd
- July 17 — Ridgewood, NY — TV Eye
- July 18 — New York, NY — Night Club 101
- July 19 — Philadelphia, PA — Johnny Brenda’s
- July 21 — Boston, MA — The Sinclair
- July 22 — Portland, ME — Oxbow
- July 23 — Brattleboro, VT — Stone Church
- July 24 — Montreal, QC — La Sala Rossa
Europe:
- October 28 — Paris, FR — Petit Bain
- October 29 — Rotterdam, NL — Rotwown
- October 30 — Amsterdam, NL — London Calling (Paradiso)
- October 31 — Antwerp, BE — Trix
- November 2 — Bristol, UK — Strange Brew
- November 3 — London, UK — The Garage
- November 4 — York, UK — The Crescent
- November 5 — Glasgow, UK — Stereo
- November 6 — Newcastle upon Tyne, UK — Brave Exhibitions (The Cluny)
- November 7 — Salford, UK — The White Hotel
- November 10 — Berlin, DE — Badehaus
- November 11 — Hamburg, DE — Molotow
- November 13 — Gothenburg, SE — Oceanen
- November 14 — Stockholm, SE — Hus 7
- November 16 — Malmö, SE — Plan B
- November 18 — Bredsten, DK — Engelsholm Højskole
