It tends to go overlooked how lucky Basement have been. In recent(-ish) memory, they escaped the wrath of Fueled By Ramen and the mismanagement wrought upon all their mid-2010s signings. More generally, they’ve cultivated a fanbase willing to sit through multiple years-long periods of inactivity and still wind up coming back. If you’d peg Basement as riding off the insane goodwill generated by Colourmeinkindness, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong.
They’ve put out good work since then, to be sure, but the hope that they’ve got another seminal modern grunge release in ‘em is really the crux of where Basement have ended up. They’re too potentially good to let slip, in other words. And that faith can be a good thing; it makes an album like WIRED bristle more than it otherwise might. Eight years after their last, Basement are back at their old home Run For Cover, and working with a producer as well-versed in alt- and indie-rock know-how as John Congleton. Surely that’s a slam dunk in the making, right?
…well, it’s also worth remembering that it’s been a long time since Basement’s heyday. Put aside Colourmeinkindness for a second; the last time they released an album that fits its mould was in 2016 with Promise Everything. The Basement of WIRED might look the same on the surface, but it really isn’t. Credit to them for not simply chasing their tail, but WIRED still ends up being a bit less than the sum of its parts.
The direction that Basement have taken their sound brings up the most here, now fully committed to indie-rock with hints of grunge and Britpop to taste. It’s a sensible move, and the overall humble sound is very much in Basement’s wheelhouse. As a band for whom flash and pizzazz don’t cleanly mesh with their typical feel (which makes their Fueled By Ramen stint mystifying to this day), it’s a good place to be, ultimately. And that pays off with songs like Satisfy and Summer’s End, both utilising more vivid palettes for lightweight yet likable rock songs. All the while, there’s never the feel of WIRED getting too bogged down or caught up in itself. Solid simplicity is where this creative arrow points, in strong, clear basslines on Deadweight and Broken By Design, and rougher guitars as the anchor of songs like Time Waster and the title track.
But there’s also the feeling that WIRED is missing…something. Maybe it comes from Congleton’s production and how dried-out by nature it can feel. WIRED is already nothing extravagant, and reining it in further will only draw attention to that. It’s why the final crescendo of Embrace is such a welcome turn, as easily the richest and most characteristic of their emo roots that Basement sound on the album. But that song isn’t without its hang-ups, either, thanks to a slappy drumbeat early on that’s indicative of WIRED’s sporadic yet noticeable off choices. Pick Up The Pieces wants to be brute-forcing alt-rock rager, but it sounds way too shallow to matter. Later, The Way I Feel takes a glorious power-pop guitar tone and guaranteed future scream-along line “I want you to feel the way I feel”, and saturates it in fried-up vocal production spilling out all over the place.
Altogether, they make WIRED seem messier than it should be, or can really sustain all the way through. Perhaps that’s what’s missing, then—the flexibility to misstep and suitably pull back from it. Its smallness and rigidity don’t allow for that, therefore making the more conservative end of Basement’s repertoire a better fit. Head Alight might be the album’s loosest, most laidback cut, but its circular trudge and deceptively sticky melody also make it one of the best. Longshot does even better as a sparkly acoustic ballad, featuring Andrew Fisher at his most gentle to make the sentiment “You are the star in my sky” that much warmer and fuzzier. In general, Fisher doesn’t project a rockstar’s bravado at all; he’s mid-range and hangdog, though that serves its purpose when considering where WIRED is the most at home.
Overall, you get the feeling that Basement know where their boundaries lie on WIRED, and they’re happy to play within them. When they do, there’s sincere good to be found. But they can also feel a bit too narrow sometimes, and don’t react kindly to any kind of pressure put on them. You’re left with a rather limited album, in truth, at least for what Basement are capable of delivering. Though not strictly bad, WIRED does suffer from a lot of the decisions bundled into it, paradoxically leaving it as hollow and kind of nondescript. The fact that Basement will get another chance to try again after this is its most consistent saving grace.
For fans of: Weezer, Title Fight, Pinegrove
‘WIRED’ by Basement is released on 8th May on Run For Cover Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
