An Eleven-Track Debut Rooted in Britpop and Classic Rock From the 1960s and 1970s
Lost Control opens INFRARED, then Diny follows. Both are melodic indie rock songs, and they carry the record’s most immediate energy. INFRARED is the debut album by BASIL, a six-piece from Toulouse, France, with an English singer at the front. Released on 4 September 2026, it is a French record in the language of British guitar music. It also gives the first full picture of where the band sit in that tradition.
BASIL’s music is in the playlist below, next to the alternative rock this desk keeps on rotation, with the band’s coverage gathered on the BASIL artist profile. INFRARED reached us through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Press play on the album first, then read on for where the band fit.
The British guitar tradition BASIL draw on has a chapter most listeners know. In the mid-1990s Britpop put melodic guitar bands at the centre of British pop. Its records looked back, quite deliberately, to the British rock of the 1960s and 1970s.
BASIL take their bearings from both eras. They name The Beatles and Pink Floyd from the first, and Blur and Radiohead from the second. Between them, those four bands cover most of that history.
That sound never stayed in Britain. France in particular has a long line of bands who sing rock in English, and BASIL belong to it.
BASIL Played Live for Thirteen Years Before Releasing the Eleven Songs of INFRARED
Before any of it reached a record, the band built their name on stage. They have played together since 2013. In 2024 they won the Montbrun-Lauragais Live Challenge, a free-entry countryside band contest then in its thirteenth year.
Three bands reached that final. Each played a 45-minute set, while the crowd and a professional jury each decided half of the ranking. BASIL, drawn to play last, finished first.
Several of the album’s songs were out in the world long before it. Lost Control got an official video in November 2022, and My O My had one in October 2023. A live film of Infrared Suspense, shot at Bascala, followed in February 2024.
Since September the album has reached readers on both sides of the Channel. Rockcitania, the rock magazine of France’s Occitanie region, featured the band in its September issue. In the UK, Aldora Britain Records put them on the cover of issue 658 with an eight-page interview. Mescalina has reviewed the album, and RSTLSS Radio picked Diny for its weekly show of new French rock.
Who Plays What on INFRARED by BASIL
The band see the album as the sum of a decade and more spent writing and playing together. Nicolas Rougé wrote the songs, words included, and plays guitar and harmonica. The band arranged the music together, and Lorna D’Amico sings, adapted the words and worked out the harmonies.
Vivien Courson plays guitar and also engineered the sessions, while Michaël Geneste plays bass and some guitar. Marc Andro plays keyboards and sings backing vocals, and Olivier Teulou plays the drums.
All six produced the record, and they handled the artwork and art direction as well. Stray Sound Recordings then recorded, mixed and mastered it.
Across the eleven songs, the band move between melodic indie rock and the more atmospheric side of British alternative rock. Keyboards and a harmonica sit next to the guitars, so the arrangements reach back past the 1990s too.
From the RockRevival.News curator team: “INFRARED is sequenced like the work of a band that knows how to run a live set. The two longest songs, My O My and Infrared Suspense, both run just past five minutes and sit in the second half. Morning Light then closes the record in a little over three.”
From Blur and Radiohead to Phoenix, the Acts That Sit Closest to BASIL and INFRARED
Two of the bands BASIL name as influences explain the two sides of the record. Blur‘s Parklife (1994) went to number one in Britain and won the band four BRIT Awards the following February. It made melodic guitar pop the sound of its moment. The melodic songs on INFRARED come from that school.
Radiohead went somewhere slower and more spacious on The Bends (1995), produced by John Leckie. Songs such as Fake Plastic Trees and Street Spirit (Fade Out) gave a guitar band room to slow down. Infrared Suspense and Morning Light lean the same way.
The closest adjacent act, though, comes from France. Phoenix, from Versailles, have sung in English since their first album, United, in 2000. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix won them the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album in 2010. BASIL reach the same place by another route, since their singer is English.
Thirteen years after they started, BASIL have put their place in that tradition on record. Lost Control is the way in.
Listen to INFRARED on Bandcamp and Deezer, and find BASIL on Spotify, Apple Music and SoundCloud. Follow the band on their YouTube channel, Instagram and Facebook. Every link is also in one place on Linktree.
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