Basement return with 1st new record in over 8 years
‘WIRED’ is a welcome return to form.
★★★★☆
Photo: Adam Powell
Time is a funny thing. I first saw Basement play to a not-quite-full Deaf Institute in Manchester in 2017. Fast forward just a few short years later, and I’m witnessing a mass stage invasion as thousands of people are piled into Outbreak Festival, in the same city, to catch their meteoric headline set. The band had barely released any new music between these two events. What happened, exactly?
Well, the answer is a touch mysterious. The short version is that their song Covet from 2012’s seminal Colourmeinkindness went viral on TikTok. The song is even on the all-time TikTok chart. Nobody really knows how or why. It doesn’t really matter. The most important thing is that time, justifiably, caught up with Basement. It’s impossible to escape just how good those early songs really are. An algorithm might put a song in front of somebody but, in order for it to stick, it still has to be truly memorable.
All that brings us up to 2026 and, while Colourmeinkindness is now esteemed as a cornerstone of modern emo, the band haven’t released a new album in the eight years since 2018’s Beside Myself.
Rest assured, though, it only takes a couple of bars of WIRED’s blistering opener, and aptly titled, Time Waster, to put any potential anxieties to rest. Basement are back — and they sound great. The ringing, melodic and driving guitars that are so quintessentially Basement are here, and they are in your face. These songs are full of urgency. We might have had to wait for it, but Basement really are making sure that they are wasting no time at all. WIRED is simply full of dramatic, hook-filled choruses that are absolutely made to be screamed out in unison with thousands of others at summer festivals for years to come.
There are plenty of pumping, riotous sing-alongs like Pick Up The Pieces and the title track. The band are not afraid to go all guns blazing but manages to do so without losing any of the infectious choruses that make their songs so universally loved in the first place.
There is also a mix of more reflective, downbeat songs that help to balance the album out. Broken By Design and Embrace capture a slower sound and bring to mind vintage Death Cab for Cutie. It helps to break up the album, however, towards the end, when we get Head Alight and Longshot in quick succession, it does feel like the album loses a little bit of its flow and momentum as we come to the standout closer Summer’s End.
The album ends in a blast of euphoria and cathartic energy. Summer’s End slots in alongside the very best songs Basement have ever written. It feels like it was made to close out their main sets before they come back out for the big Covet encore. As the album ends with the looping refrain of “Who’s listening now?”, I’d be willing to bet that the answer is, thankfully, probably more people than ever.
Ultimately, Basement are back, and they sound more confident than ever. Perhaps WIRED would have been better served as a slightly leaner ten song record but, even so, there’s simply no denying that it hits all of the marks that we’ve come to love and expect from listening to Basement. Just having a batch of new Basement songs that sound this fresh, urgent and energising is cause for celebration in itself. When it all comes down to it, it’s just so good to have Basement back again. It’s like no time has passed at all.
WIRED is out now via Run For Cover Records.
