Basement

It didn’t take long for the title of Basement’s debut record, I Wish I Could Stay Here, to seem like something of a misnomer. Just a year after the album’s release, it was already becoming clear that the group had no intention of staying there–whether that just meant their historic port town home of Ipswich in Suffolk, England; or the relative confines of the turn-of-the-century emo sound they’d already deftly mastered. The promising young band was setting their sights somewhere else as they prepared to make their landmark sophomore album, Colourmeinkindness. The record started to carry Basement to the brink of wider success, only to find the band announcing a hiatus months before it even came out–but a decade later the album’s clear influence, and Basement’s triumphant return, are proof of Colourmeinkindness’ era-defining impact.