Guilt

During their six-year run as an intense and emotive über-indie-noise-metal-hardcore act, Guilt attracted scant notice for their broader influence or lasting importance. Their tracks wove prime ingredients from assorted styles into something unforced, stirring genuine feeling and sparking probing questions inside a format usually limited to rote “evil” subjects and horror imagery. The group grew out of Stepdown, assembled in 1991 by Endpoint’s former drummer Lee Fetzer and bassist Kyle Noltemeyer (now on guitar), Christian McCoy on bass, powerhouse drummer Jon Smith, and Endpoint guitarist Duncan Barlow handling vocals. Stepdown operated as fiercely political and openly confrontational, clashing repeatedly with the Nazi contingent of the Louisville scene. Once Barlow’s private struggle with depression took hold, the band’s emphasis changed and the name was soon altered; Fetzer departed while Barlow assumed second guitar alongside vocal duties. The Empty 7" was tracked at Mom’s Studio and issued by Initial, then a modest Michigan-based imprint. Following a few performances the lineup disbanded for nearly a year before regrouping to cut fresh material at DSL Studios; those tracks later formed the Synesthesia 10"/CD EP on Initial, whose weighty, forceful sound featured darkly poetic lyrics and song titles drawn from colors chosen to evoke particular moods. McCoy was succeeded by Telephone Man’s Ashli State just before the band inked a deal with Chicago’s Victory Records. In the studio with producer and Shellac member Bob Weston, they refined their approach by bolstering the drums, dialing back the metallic edge of the guitars, and drawing out strong, emotionally charged performances. The finished Bardstown Ugly Box stood as the group’s defining statement, titled after a Louisville street; years ahead of its moment in the hardcore/punk realm, it fused noise, melody, heavy metal, punk rock, indie rock, and poetic storytelling with both force and refinement. Soon after the album’s release and tours alongside labelmates Earth Crisis, Noltemeyer exited, followed by State, who relocated to Philadelphia and joined the “vampire”-obsessed punk outfit Ink and Dagger. Barlow and Smith, aided by Noltemeyer as a guest, then recorded the Further EP—an eclectic set of untitled pieces that drew on the heavy percussion and meditative drone of Neurosis as well as broader avant-garde, atmospheric, and experimental currents while preserving the band’s signature heft. In 1996 the group performed one additional show with By the Grace of God/Elliott guitarist Jay Palumbo filling the bass slot. Guilt reconvened a year later when State and Noltemeyer returned to track two final songs for a 7" single issued jointly by Barlow’s fledgling Nerd Rock and the now Louisville-based Initial, then played a closing show on Halloween of 1997. In 1999 Nerd Rock assembled a retrospective of previously released Guilt material and rare cuts that also incorporated a Stepdown demo, releasing the collection as A Comprehensive Guide to Anger Composed in Drop D; a Stepdown reunion performance in Louisville marked the release, with the original lineup onstage.