On May 8th, British alternative rock mainstays Basement will return with ‘WIRED’, marking their first new album in eight years as well as a reunion with their original label Run For Cover Records. Across the LP’s 12 tracks, fans will hear a return to the unbridled passion and creative intuition that’s always animated their best material.
Today the band — vocalist Andrew Fisher, guitarists Alex Henery and Ronan Crix, bassist Duncan Stewart, and drummer James Fisher — tease ‘Wired’ with the release of lead singles ‘WIRED’ and ‘Broken By Design’, which together showcase the album’s dynamic breadth. The title-track is the most urgent they’ve ever sounded, a surefire live staple propelled by needling guitars, a slugging drumbeat, and a skyscraping hook that finds Fisher’s voice in peak form. ‘Broken By Design’ has the opposite temperament: dusky, delicate, bass-led, but still quintessentially Basement in its immediate catchiness and moody character.
Speaking of the singles, the band’s Andrew Fisher says, “‘WIRED’ is about how sometimes it feels that we are set up to feel and behave in certain ways beyond our control. That no matter how hard you try to hide it, eventually it will come out – either by choice or by force. This song was almost lost – a few of us were into it, but it sort of lost traction for a bit. Then one day it cropped back up, and we put it at the forefront of our minds, and it ended up being one of my favourite songs to perform and record.”
He continues, “‘Broken By Design’ is about giving something your absolute best and realising it’s destined to fail. Getting to the other side of the situation, looking back and deciding to do everything differently and feeling grateful for the opportunity to grow. We’ve all done a lot of work on getting better at talking to each other as friends and as band mates. Sometimes that’s an easy distinction – or rather, not a distinction at all. Other times, the lines are blurred and we lose track of who we are and why we do this. When I’m singing, ‘let’s go back to the start’ I mean to when we did this purely for fun. For an excuse to see each other, to travel, to be creative, to express ourselves through music. We all feel so lucky to be in a position to still get to do this and this album and this song in particular, is us trying to go back to how it should be.”
Catch Basement on tour:
05/06 – Rock Am Ring – Nürburg, RP, Germany (Sold Out, Join Waitlist)
06/06 – Rock im Park – Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany
08/06 – Loppen – Copenhagen, DK (with Glare)
09/06 – Kollektivet Livet – Stockholm, Sweden (with Glare)
14/06 – TAMA – Poznań, Poland (with Glare)
15/06 – Schlachthof – Wiesbaden, HE, Germany (with Glare)
17/06 – zakk – Düsseldorf, Germany (with Glare)
19/06 – Hurricane Festival – Scheeßel, NDS, Germany
20/06 – Southside Festival – Neuhausen ob Eck, BW, Germany
21/06 – Farewell Youth Fest 2 – Dresden, Germany
23/06 – Magazzini Generali – Milan, Lombardy, Italy (with Fiddlehead)
24/06 – Dynamo Zürich (Dynamo) – Zürich, ZH, Switzerland (with Fiddlehead)
25/06 – Jera on Air – Ysselsteyn, Limburg, Netherlands
26/06 – Mia Mao – Paris, France (with Fiddlehead)
28/06 – Bowlers Exhibition Centre – Manchester, UK (Outbreak Festival headline)
23/08 – Victoria Park – London, UK (All Points East)
27/08 – 29/08 – Canela Party – Torremolinos, Spain
