HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Colourmeinkindness – Basement

In the late 00s and early 10s, there was a boom of emo-leaning alt-rock/pop-punk bands. Typically based out of the US’ Mid-Atlantic region, the movement was fronted by the likes of CITIZEN, SUPERHEAVEN and BALANCE & COMPOSURE. But these were just a few of the band’s winning over the masses with their high-energy, low-mood songs, with TIGERS JAW, GRANDVIEW and KNUCKLE PUCK all releasing seminal albums. And then there’s the UK contingency in the shape of BASEMENT. Ten years on from their sophomore album Colourmeinkindness, it’s still hard to wrap our heads around the chaos that preceded such a well-received and revered album that cemented them as modern emo’s leading light. 

Following the release of their debut album I Wish I Could Stay Here (2011), there was ample buzz about the Ipswich-based band. They’d managed to meld early 90s grunge with turn-of-the-Millennium emo, via dashes of shoegaze and top 40 radio rock – and they’d done it to fantastic effect. Released to critical acclaim, and propped up by an extensive touring schedule that saw them head Down Under, they soon set about writing their follow up. No easy task for any band, but for BASEMENT, they were writing an album while separated by the Atlantic Ocean.

While much of the band was still on British soil, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Alex Henery had relocated to the US. So rather than getting together in a practice space and working on tracks in the moment, the band wrote parts individually which were then shared via email and tinkered with depending on their bandwidth. Cast your minds back to the internet of a decade ago – it doesn’t sound ideal. Eventually, they had enough material and set to recording Colourmeinkindness in sunny California. They only had limited time in the studio though, and so the band worked as hard as they could, into the small hours of the morning, finalising the songs they had and – according to Henery – wrote songs from scratch.

With the recording and mastering done, BASEMENT revealed to their growing fanbase the album would come later that year. That was July 16th 2012. Just three days later, they announced they would be going on hiatus following one more tour to promote Colourmeinkindness. Sure enough, in mid-November, less than a month after the release of their hard-fought follow up, BASEMENT went on hiatus “due to a number of personal commitments”. But what of the album that had caused such a headache to put together?

Colourmeinkindness received widespread plaudits and admiration, tallying up a slew of 9/10s and five-star reviews. Reviewers were particularly impressed by frontman Andrew Fisher‘s performance and the lyricism was highlighted as ‘top-notch’ and ‘remarkable’. Even today, ten years on, Covet‘s chorus of ‘When I’m with you, I don’t wanna be with you‘ is simple enough and relatable enough to get stuck in your head for days; the entirety of Pine speaks to the lovesick and hopeless parts of our psyche, whether they’re being currently felt, or feelings of years and relationships past. Just try not to cathartically scream along to ‘I hate myself, and that’s okay‘. 

Mercifully, the hiatus was finite and BASEMENT returned in 2014. Since then they’ve put out two more studio albums – 2016’s Promise Everything and 2018’s Beside Myself. While each and every album they’ve released is received well, there is an element of Colourmeinkindness being something of an early pinnacle; a career-defining benchmark that will require the recapturing of lightning. You can hear the frantic energy through every second of Colourmeinkindness‘ 33 minute runtime; whether it’s during the quiet reflective moments of Breathe or in the bold outbursts of Bad Apple; in both the saccharine sorrow of Comfort and the raucous rabble of Spoiled. 

It’s those qualities which have echoed through the modern emo landscape for the past decade. You can hear a similar everyman candor in PUP‘s back catalog; BASEMENT‘s footprint is all over ORCHARDS‘ infectious energy; and their DNA can be heard in the material of brand new bands today like OVERSIZE.

BASEMENT deserves to be recognised as one of the UK’s most important exports in modern rock music, and Colourmeinkindness is a massive factor in that. We live in hope of new music one day soon, but in the meantime, we have this golden nugget to come back to again and again and again…

Colourmeinkindness was originally released October 23rd 2012 via Run For Cover Records.

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