Guilt - A Comprehensive Guide To Anger Management Composed In Drop D

Year: 1998

Label: Nerd Rock

I promise I'll lay off the hardcore after this one, and get back to some more varied fare, but like I've mentioned, I'm trying to clean up my computer, and I'm finding these old records that I think should be shared before they are deleted from my hard drive.

Anyhoo.

Guilt were born of the fertile Louisville punk and hardcore scene and belong to the same family tree that brings us Endpoint, By The Grace Of God, The Aasee Lake, Enkindel, Elliot, and Ink And Dagger among others. This particular record is a compilation of vinyl and rare releases, although it doesn't contain the "Further" ep for whatever reason. It begins with the Stepdown demo from 1991 which is the straight ahead hardcore band that spawned Guilt as an Endpoint side project. It's pretty much by the numbers hardcore that really serves as a point of departure to gauge how far, or how much better, this band got as they aged. Once you get into the actual Guilt material, they pick up where Stepdown leaves off, but continue to spiral into more complex and interesting territory, taking cues from the Louisville scene elders, Slint and tempering the hardcore with math rock and big dynamics. Once you get to the halfway point in this record it's like listening to a new band, a much better band, a more evolved and sophisticated band. That being said, it's still heavy hardcore based stuff, but more interesting than a lot of their contemporaries. 

At some point I'll post the Bardstown Ugly Box lp and Further record, as those are the most fleshed out of Guilt's catalog, but for some good kick in the gut hardcore, this one does just fine.

DL - part 1

DL - part 2