The Basement: Illicit Hugs and Playground Thugs

Finally, a summer record for those of us who prefer autumn. There is a time shortly after dusk when the summer day’s inability to meet holiday expectations forms. Irish quartet the Basement’s first major release captures this letdown somehow amidst its honky-tonk soul shouting, making it more than your average bar rhythm and blues band. Released last summer in the UK, Illicit Hugs and Playground Thugs comes after years in the studio with expectations simmering thanks to a handful of enthusiastically received singles. The indie bluesmen with an Irish croon have a lot to offer; they are part of the greater legacy of solid Irish rhythm and blues that rarely resonates with the North American audience, unless you consider “Brown Eyed Girl” the best Van Morrison has to offer. Please don’t.

The album single and first song, “Do You Think You’re Movin’ On”, channels the Byrds to create an alt-country barnstormer. Lead singer John Mullen delivers a barroom ballad and sings about being a “tragic failure” in less than three minutes, leaving listeners wanting more. There is nothing revolutionary about the Basement’s sound. No matter. Songs like “Summertime” capture simple, but often forgotten, moments. The band has the subtlety to bring to mind a downtrodden and whiskey-tinged existence without losing the driving momentum (accentuated by tasteful finger picking and guitar strumming). The clean, tight production shares much with the jams on the Arctic Monkey’s Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Most of this is because fellow Irishman and Arctic Monkey, Mike Crossey, produced the album. This approach has found fortune since some of the earliest UK blues bands, such as the Rolling Stones, began covering American blues classics.

The Basement is the latest of UK rockers, such as the Coral and the Libertines, to ape the ’60s blues and psychedelic sound. The band named after Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” is able to put its own stamp on the genre mainly due to Mullen’s croon that comes off like that of Pogues’ frontman Shane McGowan. Mullen gets a little gravelly on “Medicine Day,” recalling early Mr. Zimmerman. The first few seconds sound like Travis’s sugarcoated “Sing” but give into a song about a menacing road trip. Even their love songs show a level of maturity that bands their age won’t show until much later, and many never reach. “It’s a Kinda Love” details a lover’s explanation that he gives a love that cannot be seen, and, “It’s like a wishing well that don’t give back / And what good’s that? / You tell me.”

The British media has a tendency to over hype new acts, but its mark tends to come closer with artists that incorporate rhythm and blues or soul. The Basement isn’t going to change the world, but it can nail those odd and hard-to-describe moments within it. Even the rackety old pub drunks and playground thugs know that the summer gives into the season of crumbling — fall. Have another drink … it’s getting chilly.