A review by Ben Ratliff that appeared in the New York Times…

Edith Frost, a 32-year-old refugee from an underground country-music scene in New York who is now based in Chicago, has made a debut album that’s built to last. More to the point, it’s almost designed for a long wait before its discovery, with its close-to-the-vest inward guilelessness, its austerity and desolate emotionalism.

Calling Over Time frames basic heartbreak 11 different ways; in each case, the narrator remains consistent, unblamable, bereft. The sorrowful words, filled with water and fire imagery, are straightforward and resolutely unpoetic. But here and there a startling line surfaces: "loving hand turns burning sand to water," she repeats in the title song, offering redemption across long distances.

Ms. Frost is as unpreposessing a singer as she is a lyricist, and it’s not until "Too Happy," the country-tinged sixth track, that one has a sense of how durable an instrument her airy voice is.

Rather, it’s the melodies that draw a listener back. For most of the album she is accompanied only by acoustic guitar, dissonant organ chords or a spare bass line; the lack of background action levitates the gorgeous songs.