Cola played The Rockwell – 7/19

Ought-offshoot Cola headlined a buzzing Friday night at the Rockwell with Devon Welsh and Trophy Wife.

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Canadian art-punks Ought were one of my favorite bands of the 2010s, right up through their underrated 2018 swan-song Room Inside the World. And while they’re still missed, we can rejoice in the fact that former members Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy’s newish trio Cola is here to fill at least some of that void. A tighter and more compact vision than their prior project, Cola finds the pair and drummer Evan Cartwright (who’s also played with U.S. Girls and The Weather Station) pursuing hypnotic post-punk grooves led by singer/guitarist Darcy’s distinctive voice and incisive lyrics.

Their sophomore LP The Gloss dropped in June, and the band were on the road to support it with a packed Rockwell show last month. Darcy has always been a piercing stage presence, and Stidworthy and Carwright’s lockstep rhythm section melded with that into a totally engrossing power-trio set. No frills; no need.

Opening the tour was another familiar face of the recent indie past: onetime Majical Cloudz frontman Devon Welsh. Now working as a solo act and triggering his own ambient-pop backing, Welsh’s emotionally raw, direct-eye-contact performance style was even more effectively disarming than it once was backed by onstage collaborators. It takes bravery to get as intimate with a crowd as Welsh does, and it remains legitimately powerful to witness.

Brookyln-based (but formerly Bostonian) indie rockers Trophy Wife kicked things off with a spirited, satisfying set of their own. Scroll for a gallery of all three acts below.