Best Ex, the artist formally known as Candy Hearts, shakes off her pop-punk history with her second EP. While 2017’s ‘
Ice Cream Anti-Social’ took the buoyancy of her Warped Tour past to her bedroom, all diary entry confessionals and the joy of a hairbrush microphone, ‘
Good At Feeling Bad’ is a jukebox love affair.
Free from the shackles of her former life, ‘Good At Feeling Bad’ is an energetic shuffle where anything goes. Opening track ‘
Gap Tooth (On My Mind)’ lures you in with a sugary postcard to a far away ex, “how could I become someone you hated, fell in love with all your flaws,” before exploding into a tropical pop banger, all flashing lights and Love Island getaways. “I’m terrified,” sings Mariel, but you wouldn’t know it.
The other five tracks are just as excitable. ‘
Lemons’ is a hurried anthem of self-love and “being my own best friend” in the same bubbling spirit as Diet Cig while ‘
Bad Love’ is a brooding emo-pop number that howls at the moon, deliberate and self-assured as “a schoolgirl crush” goes sour. The chorus of ‘
Feed The Sharks’ is ridiculously catchy, TikTok meets ‘Baby Shark’, while the verses swirl with an atmospheric vulnerability. Across the EP, Best Ex offers a chunk of her heart and a reason to have a good time. ‘
Two Of Us’ is a moment of quiet, piano-led reflection, “we’re both broken in the same places,” with nowhere to hide before the closing riot of the title track provides an explosive burst of joyful escapism.
