EVOLUTION

Bethany Cosentino's songs of self-actualization

- AMANDA PETRUSICH

These days, it’s not uncommon to hear moviegoers, exhausted by new releases based on toys, comic books, or films they’ve already seen, lament the disappearance of a middle ground between blockbuster and avant-garde: stories that are character-driven but not too opaque or ponderous, that are neither blind to suffering nor drowning in pathos, that aren’t fusty or overly youth-obsessed. That same void exists, to a lesser degree, in the music industry. It’s easy to find records that feel raw and challenging, or, conversely, records that have been focus-grouped and smoothed into oblivion. It is much more difficult to find music that explores whatever might lie in between. On “Natural Disaster,” out this month, the singer, songwriter, and guitarist Bethany Cosentino takes an unexpected swing at normie rock and roll. The album’s references are clear: Liz Phair in her “Why Can’t I?” era, Alanis Morissette, Pete Yorn, the Wallflowers, Don Henley, Matchbox Twenty, and, perhaps most vividly, Sheryl Crow, who in the second half of the nineties had a lock on bluesy, loping, straightforward guitar pop. Cosentino, who was born in Los Angeles, came of age as part of Best Coast, an indie-rock duo she formed with the multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno. Best Coast released its début LP, “Crazy for You,” in 2010, and Cosentino became beloved for her gauzy and cacophonous tunes about longing and despair. She had recently spent a depressed nine months living in Brooklyn, interning at