Best Coast
Fade Away
Jewel City
Bethany Cosentino, the higher-profile half of Best Coast, which also includes multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno, excels at mixing sour and sweet, writing shiny, angst-ridden guitar anthems that she delivers in a sunny, winning voice.
The seven-track EP Fade Away contains some of her most pungent work to date, from the toe-tapping self-analysis of “Who Have I Become?” and “Fear of My Identity” to the wall-of-sound epic “I Wanna Know,” on which she sings, “It’s alarming/How charming you can be,” before concluding, “Now it’s time to say, ‘Baby goodbye.'”
Adapting old-school pop conventions to the indie-rock landscape, Cosentino’s deceptively sophisticated tunes feel like uncensored diary entries writ large.