Rocker (feedbot)
Platinum Member
Eight years ago, Basement released ‘Beside Myself’. The band took a break after this release, extended into uncertainty by successive lockdowns. In one world, this could have been the last anyone ever heard of Basement. Thankfully, driven by renewed perseverance and creativity, Basement have now found themselves reborn with ‘WIRED’, their fifth full-length record. Both sonically and musically bold, ‘WIRED’ is a deliberate statement – energetic, dark, and catchy.
Title track and lead single ‘WIRED’ presents all the elements of the album’s writing and production that make it work. A jungle-esque beat drives the verses, steely, overdriven bass and cleaner guitars layering on top of each other, before the chorus kicks in, drops down, builds up and releases tension with the regularity of breath. The only moments where the instrumentation drops down are filled with distorted feedback, keeping the tension high. All of this happening alongside Andrew Fisher’s emotive and at times soaring vocals.
The urgency of the album’s opening two tracks – ‘Time Waster’ and ‘WIRED’ bubbles to the surface throughout. ‘Pick Up The Pieces’ starts with Fisher’s distorted vocals and alternates between a bouncing drum-and-bass led verse and a roaring chorus. ‘Sever’ is a stabbing number, with a more open chorus contrasting its unrelenting verses, eventually fully opening in the song’s final moments, before Fisher’s vocals crash into white noise.
When the energy is dropped, it’s for a quieter, moodier, atmosphere. There is a consistent tonal through-line which carries the album between its faster and slower paced moments – ‘Broken By Design’ and ‘Head Alight’ are certainly quieter than ‘WIRED’, but they all feel part of the same family. A large part of this is production choices, leaning into a dirtier bass and slightly subdued vocals across the album, but the songs themselves avoid sounding sluggish, instead settling into their own grooves.
Those tamer, slowcore grooves run through the album – in the case of ‘Deadweight’, literally slowing the song down for its choruses – which keeps ‘WIRED’ humming with a dancing rhythm regardless of tempo. Hooks rise and fall, vocals alternate between clean and distorted, creating an elevated sonic space which is as comfortable with harshness as it is with Basement’s catchier side. Songs like ‘The Way I Feel’ hold these two juxtaposed elements in accord with each other, allowing the vocals in the chorus to become distorted to the point of being illegible – what is left is the tune and the groove, and both wash over you with the waves of fuzz and gain.
‘WIRED’ comes to a close with ‘Summer’s End’, a distinctly nineties song. The bass is still steely, but with a touch of chorus to give it a Cure vibe, which complements the upbeat drums. Fisher floats above and below the music, his vocals swimming with a fuzzed-out lead guitar soloing its way through the second half the song. It’s a summery song, dripping with a nostalgic poppy energy, and a simple and infectious rise and fall vocal line which becomes inescapable by the song’s end.
As rebirths go, ‘WIRED’ is a worthy one. Easily more adventurous than ‘Beside Me’, with a dedication to pushing both songwriting and sonic textures, this is Basement finding what worked for them in the past and holding on to its core while jettisoning anything that would push them into self-pastiche. A band returning from a break must be able to answer the question of whether it was worth it. Basement have answered with a resounding yes.
WILL BRIGHT
Title track and lead single ‘WIRED’ presents all the elements of the album’s writing and production that make it work. A jungle-esque beat drives the verses, steely, overdriven bass and cleaner guitars layering on top of each other, before the chorus kicks in, drops down, builds up and releases tension with the regularity of breath. The only moments where the instrumentation drops down are filled with distorted feedback, keeping the tension high. All of this happening alongside Andrew Fisher’s emotive and at times soaring vocals.
The urgency of the album’s opening two tracks – ‘Time Waster’ and ‘WIRED’ bubbles to the surface throughout. ‘Pick Up The Pieces’ starts with Fisher’s distorted vocals and alternates between a bouncing drum-and-bass led verse and a roaring chorus. ‘Sever’ is a stabbing number, with a more open chorus contrasting its unrelenting verses, eventually fully opening in the song’s final moments, before Fisher’s vocals crash into white noise.
When the energy is dropped, it’s for a quieter, moodier, atmosphere. There is a consistent tonal through-line which carries the album between its faster and slower paced moments – ‘Broken By Design’ and ‘Head Alight’ are certainly quieter than ‘WIRED’, but they all feel part of the same family. A large part of this is production choices, leaning into a dirtier bass and slightly subdued vocals across the album, but the songs themselves avoid sounding sluggish, instead settling into their own grooves.
Those tamer, slowcore grooves run through the album – in the case of ‘Deadweight’, literally slowing the song down for its choruses – which keeps ‘WIRED’ humming with a dancing rhythm regardless of tempo. Hooks rise and fall, vocals alternate between clean and distorted, creating an elevated sonic space which is as comfortable with harshness as it is with Basement’s catchier side. Songs like ‘The Way I Feel’ hold these two juxtaposed elements in accord with each other, allowing the vocals in the chorus to become distorted to the point of being illegible – what is left is the tune and the groove, and both wash over you with the waves of fuzz and gain.
‘WIRED’ comes to a close with ‘Summer’s End’, a distinctly nineties song. The bass is still steely, but with a touch of chorus to give it a Cure vibe, which complements the upbeat drums. Fisher floats above and below the music, his vocals swimming with a fuzzed-out lead guitar soloing its way through the second half the song. It’s a summery song, dripping with a nostalgic poppy energy, and a simple and infectious rise and fall vocal line which becomes inescapable by the song’s end.
As rebirths go, ‘WIRED’ is a worthy one. Easily more adventurous than ‘Beside Me’, with a dedication to pushing both songwriting and sonic textures, this is Basement finding what worked for them in the past and holding on to its core while jettisoning anything that would push them into self-pastiche. A band returning from a break must be able to answer the question of whether it was worth it. Basement have answered with a resounding yes.
WILL BRIGHT