This coming March, Youth of Today featuring their We’re Not in This Alone lineup, plays a one-off show at the Brooklyn Bazaar. While Youth of Today had many iterations, all lineups are truly considered classic. The impact of bands like Youth of Today and other acts on Huntington Beach’s Revelation Records still resonates decades after the label’s heyday. Here is a special Top 5 countdown of our most favorite Revelation releases through the years.
05) Elliott – US Songs
Tough to define this band and this record in terms of category. Post hardcore, melodic hardcore, emo, punk… whatever it is, it’s amazing. There is no other record like this and no other band like this. Turn on this record and let it take away to another time and another place. It was so unlike anything Revelation had put out and so many were scratching their heads about this band from Louisville, yet they clearly could hold their own with the best.
Key Track: Miracle
04) Better Than a Thousand – Just One
A hardcore supergroup if you will. This project featured Shelter and Youth of Today’s Ray Cappo on vocals, Damnation A.D.’s Ken Olden on drums, Graham Land from both Shelter and Battery and Jeff Neumann on bass. With Shelter taking a more pop turn at the time, Ray wanted to create a record that was more in the vein of ’87 hardcore and Just One is the result. Fierce music for the pit meshed with powerful and highly critical lyrics. I’m still nursing my wounds from their debut show back in ’97.
Key Track: Live Today
03) Youth of Today – Break Down the Walls
In 1986 the blueprint for the Revelation sound was created. It was this record. With two-minute intense songs that were painfully real and honest, this was the one that started it all. Classic cover of Ray Cappo, Porcell, and the crowd – a precursor to exactly what you’d experience when we went to see them at the Anthrax in Danbury, CT (RIP). Every single song is a piece of hardcore history – and every member on that record is NYHC royalty.
Key Track: Honesty
02) Into Another – Ignaurus
Richie Birkenhead’s project after Underdog. This also featured Drew Thomas from Bold and Youth of Today on drums and Tony Bono of Whiplash on bass. Newcomer at the time, Peter Moses, rounded out the lineup with his amazing guitar. What they produced was a heartfelt, gritty and melodic record that wasn’t the heaviest on Revelation’s roster, but was one that left a mark. Because this record was so diverse and so different than anything in the post-hardcore world at the time, it flew largely under the radar, but while Quicksand gets much of the credit for that “post-hardcore” sound, Into Another is right there as well. I saw this band perform every single chance I could, and it was still never enough.
Key Track: Running Into Walls
