[Cover photo credit to Alps Lifee]

Best Ex, the Indie Pop project of Mariel Loveland, will be releasing new album, Good Girl, on November 6, 2026, via Iodine Recordings. New single “Living In Hell” is out now, a breakup song that features the action of karma.

She comments on the new track:

I realized that out of all the songs I had [for the album], there wasn’t a single fun breakup song, which is usually my trademark.

The song is “cathartic, darkly funny, and with just the right amount of pettiness to be satisfying.”

The song may be karmic, but Loveland “isn’t interested in elaborate revenge schemes, dramatic confrontations, or becoming an antihero.” She’d simply like her former tormentor to experience a prolonged series of minor inconveniences.

She adds:

I wanted to write something powerful, cathartic, and also kind of silly. Like, what if you really do want to watch someone who deeply hurt you suffer, but not that badly? You’re not some supervillain. What if they suffered just enough to be continuously annoyed for the rest of their life? I could live with that.

When someone hurts you, it’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting them to feel the pain they caused you. But at a certain point, the ultimate closure is understanding that you don’t have to do anything.

They can’t escape the way they treated you, because that’s how they treat themselves. That’s what the song is about. That, and the sweet karma of them dropping their expensive phone and cracking the screen.

While the album Good Girl explores the heavier realities of adulthood, including “anxiety, grief, identity, changing relationships, uncertainty, and the complicated process of figuring out who you are”, the record also leaves room for humor and irreverence.