EP Review: Best Ex’s “Good at Feeling Bad”

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EP Review: Best Ex’s “Good at Feeling Bad”

In a week where it seems like everyone and their mom is putting out new music, which I’m also fully here for, a  standout for you should be the new EP, Good At Feeling Bad, by Best Ex. Best Ex, aka Mariel Loveland, has had about a three year break between new records, but it’s definitely worth the wait. Loveland has been producing music for years, be it her solo project with Best Ex to the band she spent many years with, with cult-loved Candy Hearts. Fans of Loveland from prior and for Best Ex will be easily pleased. If you were there for the absolute banger that was Bad Love that finds a home on her new EP, the tracks that surround it will be right up your alley. 

It’s no secret how Loveland is an incredibly talented writer. As well as being the main songwriter for her music projects, she has written some incredible think pieces about what it’s like to be a touring musician as well as most recently, how lockdown has brought out ex’s in full force. And the lyrics speak for themselves on these much anticipated songs. Be it the line, ‘You could earthquake my heart in two’ with opening track, Gap Tooth (On My Mind) to ‘I am not the awful things that you want me to be’ in Feed the Sharks and in countless many other moments in the six tracks that compose the EP. 

Bad Love is the track on the release that was a huge banger that I was pretty much instantly hooked on when it first hit the airwaves, and is a good face to see but it’s surrounded by gorgeous dancy tunes as well like the title track on the EP which takes the final slot, Good at Feeling Bad . A seemingly dancy track where once the chorus hits it takes a turn in vibe but the lyrics are a huge highlight of the album and it makes for a perfect ending track to this release. ‘By now my darkness is a pedigree’, a standout line for me. Lemons makes Loveland’s previous act come to mind as well. Really any track off this EP is clutch, and really keeps the energy up, with the beautiful exception of Two of Us, really the one big ballad moment that any release of music really needs. It’s a track that shows Loveland’s range both sonically and vocally,  and is the slower moment that we needed in this non stop EP. 

Good at Feeling Bad is the EP we need in these crazy times and reads like a honest and pure love letter from Loveland’s soul. Loveland tackles some really interpersonal relationships on this record and some harder moments in her life, but as much as I’ve been saying music is our armour right now, it’s therapeutic for the artists as well. And I’m fully here for it. 

The new EP hits shelves Friday and is being released by No Sleep Records. You can pre-order the record here.

About Author

Colleen

Colleen has been writing about music since 2009. Interviewing bands since the glory days of Warped and has continued to do so for now over fourteen years. As well as doing freelance for other publications, the love for everything rock continues today.