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Barrows: Tomorrow’s Fear 12” (self-released) Tomorrow’s Fear is the self-released debut album from Barrows, from Japan’s Tajima province. Mike from Analog Attack was talking about Tomorrow’s Fear in one of his recent videos, and he spoke about how Tajima is a provincial part of Japan without the important punk infrastructure of venues, practice spaces, and record stores you find in larger cities/scenes like Tokyo and Osaka. Barrows’ home base seems significant to me because, despite the heavy nods to Disaster and Disclose in so many aspects of this album, Tomorrow’s Fear nevertheless avoids the feeling that it came off the raw punk assembly line. Yes, it’s bathed in the fried tones of Disclose’s Tragedy, but unlike, say, the new Meanwhile EP we were talking about a few weeks ago (which, by the way I love), Tomorrow’s Fear doesn’t feel like a studious deconstruction and reconstruction of Discharge’s songs (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). Because the riffs and songs don’t feel overly familiar, they hit in a way that feels more visceral and direct; I’m never pulled out of the moment by an impulse to figure out exactly what Barrows is appropriating. That being said, Tomorrow’s Fear is pitched-down-the-middle, no-surprises d-beat raw punk, so if that’s your thing (read: you’re still regularly spinning that killer Ultimate Disaster record from last year), I don’t see any reason you wouldn’t love this.