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Youth of Today - Can’t Close My Eyes 7″ with blank b-side label is one of those random anomalies no one is really sure about. I’ve heard a number like 40 or 50 thrown around as being the quantity existing but there’s no way to confirm that, and since I’ve seen 2 or 3 I feel like that might be low. Some copies have something written on the label, or a picture glued to it, some seem to be blank like this one. Seems like it happened during the 2nd pressing as they all come in sleeves with white lettering.

For a record so awesome, Can’t Close My Eyes sounds like absolute crap on the original 7″. Later on they “remixed” it, and rerecorded the guitar tracks so that it finally sounded listenable, but on this version the guitars sound like they were recorded through a cellphone inside a tin can. Absolutely the worst guitar sound I’ve ever heard on a hardcore record… except maybe that Full On Straight track on the Generation of Hope comp. Even sounding like total garbage though can’t stop a song like Expectations. Even you straight edge hating druggies can dig a song like this, it’s the ultimate teenage anger track, complaining about the overbearing expectations of parental units. In general YOT sound most like Antidote and DYS at this stage in their career. The vocals are the most throat-shredded and spastic, the riffs at their most thrashing and uncontrolled, the vibe in general is just youthful anger. This is also the only YOT record to have a kind of militant stance about straight edge, more in line with DYS/SS Decontrol/Negative FX, than the positive reputation they have today, and all the dull post Insted bands that cite them now.

I wish there was a straight edge band now with vocals this out of control and raging. Cappo is just letting it fly on here with absolutely no regard. No matter how many bad bands these guys have been in since the 90s (Shelter, Never Surrender, Last Of The Famous, other pop-punk bands I haven’t heard thankfully…) this will always be a sick release and my favorite Youth Of Today record. Bonus:  2 dudes from 76% Uncertain are on this one. Hi Bob.