Review Summary: Another 2026 surprise
The Ipswich post-hardcore / new-grunge five-piece have returned after eight years—their last album dropping pre-pandemic, back before “Covet” was being used in 40 million TikTok thirst trap edits. This is like the 2nd or 3rd time Basement have split up and reunite, and while I don’t think they’ll touch 2012’s
Colourmeinkindness, this new record
WIRED genuinely surpassed my expectations. It’s a pretty damn good return that clears bar by a healthy margin.
While their song-writing is less biting as the members have grown and matured, that maturity also leads to some of their best song-writing and compositions. Musically, you are still in very moody, grungy territory with lots of muddy, distortion heavy guitars and nostalgic tones. Honestly a lot of this reminded me of early Feeder, which my fellow Brits will know as a good thing.
Most of this albums leans into the rawer, grungier side of Basement’s sound with tracks like the opener
'Timewaster', the title track and
'Pick Up The Pieces' all being pretty rocking and noisy.
'Broken By Design' then brings more of an indie rock flavour and is a nice little ditty too.
'Embrace' is then a slower, spacier number to serve as the album’s mid-point crescendo. Then the second half is solid but less eventful and exciting than the first half, at least in my opinion anyway, with the exception being
'The Way I Feel', my favourite track here. It strikes a perfect balance of melody and grit, and features the best vocal performance on the record. We also get the other single, the downtempo and dreamy
'Head Alight', which I wasn’t super hot on as a single but here in the flow of the album actually serves as a pretty welcome tempo and vibe switch-up in the final leg.
WIRED keeps Basement firmly on the rawer, edgier side of the modern alt rock spectrum. And whilst this never really blew my tits off, I did enjoy this pretty much the whole way through, more than I was expecting given the gap in releases. Therefore I’m giving this a score of VERY GOOD!
