Guilty of Everything

Musical style

The band's musical style has been described as a mixture of '90's shoegazing, noise rock, and slowcore. It has also been additionally categorized as "heavy dream-pop" and "billowy alt-rock." Nevertheless, the band's sound distances itself from other shoegazing acts with its loudness and heaviness, being compared to the styles of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless (1991), The Smashing Pumpkins and Dinosaur Jr.. The band's style also "stays current by also giving nods to the post-Brand New indie rock sound." According to Stephen Carlick of Exclaim!, the band's use of "towering distorted guitars, soaring falsettos and slamming, snare-heavy percussion" evoke "Slowdive's biggest moments, albeit with a little more passion." The vocals of lead singer Dominic Palermo, which are "hushed and buried in the mix," were compared to those in Chapterhouse records, in terms of harmony.

Release and promotion

Prior to the album's release, the first single "Dig" debuted on August 8, 2013 through Stereogum. A music video directed by Don Argott for the track "Bent Nail" was released on March 31, 2014. The video features a cameo appearance from singer-songwriter Kurt Vile. On May 26, 2015, a special LGBT LP edition was released and only available on Relapse Records' webstore. This version features alternate artwork, with the standard white flag altered to a Rainbow Pride flag and "electric blue with rainbow splatter" vinyl. $1 of each purchase is split evenly between the LGBT charity/support groups New Alternatives (an organization dedicated to helping homeless LGBT youth in New York City) and the It Gets Better Project.

Critical reception

The aggregate review site Metacritic assigned an average score of 77 out of 100 to the album based on 11 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Absolutepunk.net staff critic Blake Solomon stated that "Guilty of Everything is the sort of first album that takes itself too seriously in the most endearing way--it's something that must be purged before a band can move on." Tim Sendra of Allmusic wrote: "Forget about shoegaze or metal or noise rock or any other genre; this is stark, dramatic music that comes from pain and has been crafted into high art that will move and inspire listeners lucky enough to hear it." At Alternative Press, Brian Shultz rated the album four stars out of five, saying that "Occasionally, this style of music gives way to too much meandering or noise for the sake of it, but Nothing's melodic and encompassing LP debut is guilty of neither." The Boston Globe critic Michael Andor Brodeur described the album as "a storm of shoegaze, noise-rock, and slow-core, surging together into something lovely and lethal."

Stephen Carlick of Exclaim! commented that "Guilty of Everything is thus an emotional affair, but it's balanced by moments of grandness." Pitchfork critic Ian Cohen described the album as "loud, distorted and heavy, but not aggressive." Gary Suarez of PopMatters wrote: "Guilty of Everything offers shockingly little beyond what was already on offer by the mid-‘90s." Nevertheless, he also further explained: "Yet as it so happens, the record fares remarkably better than most of those moldy oldies they’ve already been compared with, albeit for banal reasons." Rock Sound critic Andy Richie stated: "Individually, tracks like ‘Hymn To The Pillory’ and ‘Somersault’ aren’t particularly staggering, but as a whole body of work it really is something else."

Naomi Zeichner of BuzzFeed described the track "Endlessly" as Built to Spill bruised up and melted into a puddle."

Track listing

All tracks written by Domenic Palermo and Brandon Setta.

Personnel

Guilty of Everything album personnel adapted from CD liner notes.