Albert Frost releases ‘Sacred Sound’ after lockdown frustrations

SACRED Sound is the new album from renowned South African blues and rock guitarist and singer-songwriter Albert Frost.

The Sama award-winning musician released the album this month.

He started working on the album in late 2019 and began working with Theo Crous at Bellville Studios in Cape Town in February 2020, only to have it all grind to a halt.

Frost and Crous started with the aim of mixing a fuzz-rock sound with an African flavour, which is heard in the tracks Everlasting and At Least I Have You.

“After lockdown lifted and we could carry on working, the sound shifted to more of an old school ’90s riff-rock sound, so the inspiration was to create an honest and raw South African rock album, which kind of channelled the anger and frustration of lockdown,” he said.

With no initial plan on what he wanted the album to be like, Frost said they created it as they went, a risky but ultimately rewarding way of doing an album.

“I love working with different lyricists, so content is diverse. Ranging from everyday fears to thankfulness, to gratitude to anger. The sound is raw yet full, we tried to get the biggest loudest sound possible, focused on guitars,” he said.

The biggest challenge for Frost when putting this album together was staying motivated, as it took much longer to finish than he had planned.

“In this unsure and unnerving time, it took its toll,” he said.

“I collaborated with Arno Carstens on the track Storms Are Breaking, such an honour working with him again after all these years, it came out beautifully.

“The track Ecce Homo features Neil Sandilands narrating a passage from Nietzsche’s work, which is awesome just because it is so different and yet it fits the song perfectly,” Frost added.

On why he named the album Sacred Sound, he said once it was completed, he realised that it was a diverse piece of work.

“The binding factor is that we focused on the actual sound of the album. That is the main focus and it will hopefully remind people that music is a sacred thing.

“This is by far my best work yet. The album has more of a live feel than the others, a stripped-down piece that more closely relates to Devils and Gods rather than The Wake Up,” he said.