Best Ex- New Music

BEST EX Releases Debut Album With a Smile via Iodine Recordings/Alcopop! Records

“‘I Promise to Ruin Your Life’ is the same kind of bright, cheery pop-punk Mariel Loveland made her name on in Candy Hearts. Being that this is her solo project, the music feels appropriately more intimate; ‘I Promise to Ruin Your Life’ is as sugary and catchy as anything Candy Hearts ever put out, but it’s warmer, with more homespun production.” - The Alternative “We can’t get enough of this catchy alt-pop song [‘I Promise to Ruin Your Life’]. It’s about the start of a new relationship. You know, where you think it ‘could’ end like your previous relationships, but you hope it doesn’t. Some of the lyrics may be pessimistic, but sonically, it’s so fun and upbeat.” - The Honey Pop “‘I Promise To Ruin Your Life,’ and despite its brutal title, it is actually about the forming of a crush. A cutesy piece of driving punk-rock brimming with gooey-eyed sentiments and forward-facing predictions, it’s a self-aware and sensational love song.” - idobi

“’The End’ isn’t so much a protest song, but more of a song built out of frustration for the state of the world,” says Mariel Loveland of NYC-based indie-pop band Best Ex about the focus track on her debut album With A Smile, out today (6th October 2023) via Iodine Recordings/Alcopop! Records

Although the idea of the song initially came to her during the pandemic, as she “watched politicians transform a deadly disease into political rhetoric,” the meaning behind the lyrics were exacerbated when, as she was recording the song, Roe V. Wade (the landmark Supreme Court case that decriminalized abortion in 1973) was overturned and then, on the day she tracked the vocals, there was another school shooting. 

“Once again, the people in charge pretended they were powerless, as if the 200-year-old ink on the U.S. Constitution was signed by God himself. All they could offer was a prayer,” she says despairingly. “That’s why I added church bells at the end.” As she was recently diagnosed with Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), Mariel wanted the chorus to sound like an OCD fear spiral in which she keeps asking herself repeatedly, “Is the world ending? No, it’s not. But it could be? Oh god what if it is?” The accompanying provocatve video shows Mariel sitting in front of a projector screen playing various, sensationalized, news clips and headlines culled from the past few years. 

Not too dissimilar from the “feeling scared with the state of the world” themes in “The End,” she says the main message of the album that flows throughout is the patriarchal insistence for women to maintain a level of cheerfulness and obedience in moments of pain, injustice, love, loss, and uncertainty. “There’s this double standard where women are expected to always be pleasant and grateful, lest they come off like too much of a nag, too controlling, too emotional,” she says. “The patriarchy tells us that a ‘good woman’ is a woman who quietly carries the consequence of the actions of the men around her.” There are also more universal themes on the album, like “falling in love and dealing with mental health issues,” and it is because of those that she feels anyone can relate to the album at large. At the end of the day, most of the songs simply stem from “being human.” The song that is ultimately closest to her heart, though, is “Stay With Me” which she wrote about her current beau (and now, as of last month, “husband”) as she was entering this serious relationship that felt so different from all the others she had been in. “He’s such a well-adjusted person with a grounded outlook on life. I’m someone who’s struggled with anxiety, exacerbated by relationships that ranged from unaffectionate to abusive. I felt so much that many of my previous partners just tolerated me, and I very much doubted someone would want to deal with my anxiety, which was later diagnosed as OCD *and* anxiety, long term. There’s always the fear that if you have a mental illness, it will be too much of a burden on the people you love, and they’ll leave, but he didn’t.” 

 While the indie pop single “Die For You” saw Mariel and collaborator Luxtides (moniker of singer songwriter Danni Bouchard) unabashedly call out many of the (largely male) music industry gatekeepers who know newer artists would do anything to succeed and use that against them, the R&B-infused “Cut Me Out” speaks on the painful loss of female camaraderie. Closing out the album, “Daylight” is a modern take of an early aughts indie song (a la Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley, Death Cab for Cutie) that speaks on how vulnerable one can feel when showing others their “real, unfiltered” selves. 

Throughout it all, With A Smile marks dramatic life changes that forced Mariel to re-examine her life. “I feel like I’ve aged a decade in three short years, and I think that’s all reflected on the album,” she realizes. “I met my husband and moved in with him almost instantly. We eloped. I became an aunt. I lost my grandma. I was diagnosed with OCD. When I listen, I literally hear myself coming of age.” 

 Live Dates: 10.12.23 - New York - Heaven Can Wait