We’re all familiar with how most rock critics view an artist’s sophomore effort.  It’s considered trial by fire or some sort of mystical barrier to be passed through successfully.  The alternative to victory?  To wind up a charred hunk of detrius on the far side, never to be seen or heard from again.  Bunk.  Most artists feel a genuine need to expand upon their style or test new waters the second time out.  The second record often becomes a training ground for the third, so you can see the problem the aforementioned attitude could have on the future of an artist who takes creative risks.

When did Edith Frost discover the power of fuzz? On her last record, Calling Over Time, Frost was just another sweetheart at the indie-folk rodeo; a girl from Texas living in Chicago, collecting cowgirl figurines and singing campfire ballads about loneliness and heartache. The first track on Telescopic has a lead guitar that’s buzzing like crazy and her wispy vocal is effected out the wazoo. Did Suzanne Vega track Frost down and tell her to get a makeover?

Edith Frost, the prodigal daughter of Drag City, whose prior releases (the Edith Frost EP and Calling Over Time) struck me as isolated noir-folk with a unequivocally country edge, has caught me off guard on her newest album, Telescopic.  Instead of quiet introspection, she has gone with melodic reconstruction.  There’s still a touch of the folk bug as evident by the moody strings and slightly sleepy pace of "Light" and "You Belong To No One," although Edith’s roots-rock-folk is now more psychedelic than anything coming out of the country western flavored No Depression movement.

With a pure snowfall of distortion, bending, swirling chords, and a cool, clear voice that rises into the stratosphere like a singular, heavenly choir, Edith Frost’s second album, Telescopic, walks the line between tradition and innovation.  Teethed on old country standards, this 34-year-old Texas native — now part of the revered Chicago music scene — marries her old-fashioned vocals with a winning blend of artsy noise, traditional instrumentation, and a gothic pathos.  Like many of her contemporaries — 16 Horsepower, Palace, and Tarnation, to name a few — Frost understands the delicate balance between light and dark, beauty and the beast.  On "The Very Earth" her dulcet voice sweetly harmonizes with a violin that sounds like slowly falling teardrops. The effect — like that of a favorite Patsy Cline or Hank Williams Sr. song — is at once comforting and chilling.

Singer-guitarist Edith Frost operates within an indie-rock context, but her songs draw mostly on the country torch song tradition. Her first EP and the subsequent Calling Over Time were spare, echoing records, with nothing present but what was needed to present Frost’s voice and words in a way that wouldn’t seem too stark. Telescopic, though, is a fully (if oddly) produced pop record if you listen to its slow, pacing arrangements — blasting drums hidden in the background and Amy Domingues’ cello ripping through the mix on the opening "Walk on the Fire," layered Liz Phair-ish guitars and eerie instrumental details turning up elsewhere — and the darkest, most late-night record she’s made if you pay attention to its melodies and words.

With a voice that adds a ghostly element to her music’s sleepy swagger, Frost looks at relationships from near and far.  She paints each perspective with irony, woe, and lyrics that may or may not make sense.  It just depends on how you look at it.

On Telescopic, Edith Frost sounds like somebody may have slipped her a few tabs of acid — "Walk On The Fire" launches the singer/songwriter’s sophomore full-length with more mind-clouding fuzz than you’ll find on an old angora sweater. The vintage guitar distortion effects, heartbreaking harmonies and ride cymbal pulse of "The Very Earth" also depart from Frost’s usual spartan musings. Rather than clutter her lackadaisically smooth voice, the support provided by some prominent backing musicians nurtures her craft, downplaying Frost’s vulnerability and eccentricity, and helping her overcome any potential girl-with-guitar novelty status. In addition to absorbing more acidic textures, Telescopic paves over large sections of the country road that cut through Frost’s debut album with chummy, easy listening ’70s pop. But nothing on Telescopic embraces slickness or saccharine sentiments. While at times Frost plays it too cool, her detachment is a stylish adornment to her expertise in downhome, avant-garde songwriting.

Continuing the quality established on her wonderful full-length debut album, Calling Over Time, Edith Frost has delivered another impressive body of work.

Complemented by a virtually new line-up of sympathetically adept accompanists — the remaining constant being drummer Rian Murphy — Frost proves that her laurels aren’t dependent on any one group of musicians.

Triple bill shows Drag City label’s range

Chicago’s music scene is constantly renewed by the work of visionary independent labels. In the ’90s, none has had more impact than Drag City, which has issued records by celebrated artists such as Pavement and Royal Trux.

The label presented three acts at the Empty Bottle on Friday evening that refracted Drag City’s vision through the lenses of updated traditionalism, experimentalism and irony.

Edith Frost plays songs that could make a whole room go silent and hang on her every word. With only an acoustic guitar and a melancholy alto voice, she’s subdued in volume and in tempo — but you can’t ignore her. Frost’s gift for understatement lures listeners into her spell — under which they stay after getting a taste of her moody lyrics and subtly catchy music.

Edith Frost (Sugar Doe/Thursday, May 7th)

Edith Frost is every bit a pleasure.  The music on her first album, which was not heavily represented at this show, is haunting and catchy.  This time out, she’s previewing the material from her next album, which is scheduled for a September release (?), which means that she’s touring with a rhythm section.  I kind of got the idea that the bass player was her boyfriend, but I didn’t ask, and it’s entirely likely that they’re related or he’s gay or whatever, but they had toured alone together before, and they got along really well, as far as I could tell.

there are moments when edith’s voice sounds like liz phair’s and this is one of them (the first b side); it’s almost as if the good lord sent down a liz phair replacement who could continue along making songs unfettered by that laughable production ms. phair is into now. edith has her own style, which is lonely cowgirl; she is from texas so she isn’t faking it. when will she tour with freakwater and virginia dare?

Calling Over Time begins, "I sing the blues most every night, and I wait for the one I lost," and ends with "Albany Blues," where the singer subtly mentions that she might be the one to bail out if things don’t get better. In similar manner, Edith Frost drops hints about what she’s updating; in a bluesy way, she’s fashioning something divine out of the raw material of sorrow, betrayal, and confusion.

The first full-length album from our latest musical transplant, a Texan bearing tales of heartbreak (generally her own: "He snuck into my secret files / And he read my mind"). Frost advances the minimalist modern bluegrass of her labelmate Will Oldham with drowsy, wintry songs befitting her name. Her guitar and brittle vocals sound like something drifting from an unheated cellar.

Edith Frost’s songwriting is the kind of simple that the word "deceptively" was made to modify. The music takes time and patience to appreciate it, and it offers scant frills — no clever phrase-turns; no big fat hooks; no ironic intrusions. It’s simple, subtle music whose impact lies in the tiniest changes, the colors of the chords, the tastefully dissonant organ in the background, the chilling strings almost hidden in the mix that rise up to shadow Frost’s dry, twangy voice. The feeling isn’t about the artist’s therapy; it resonates in the listener. Never resorting to overt emotionality, Frost suggests feeling, like the best minimalists must, and we respond.