Always CD

Always runs on a signal pulled back from static: vocal takes singer Dan Klein freestyled over rocksteady rhythms in a Queens apartment, before ALS took his life in 2016, three months ahead of the Frightnrs' debut, Nothing More to Say, a success he never got to see. The band rediscovered those isolated demos just before the pandemic hit. Producer Victor Axelrod built full arrangements back around them, and guitarist Preet Patel wrote in new parts where the originals left gaps. What's left sits in dub's sparse low end, closer to Alton Ellis or Sugar Minott than anything contemporary.