A review by Mark Guarino that appeared in the Daily Herald (Chicago, IL)…

Edith Frost dips into fuzz-drenched folk on ‘Telescopic’

From her last name, you’d expect Edith Frost to be an ice queen supreme and in a way she is.  Her whispery, removed vocals make her sound like fine china — any sudden chink in the music and she’d shatter.

But Frost is more delicate than dangerous.  The damaged love songs that make up her second album "Telescopic" (Drag City) are orchestrated so minimally they’re like a 40-minute session in hypnosis.  When she sings, "you hold me / underneath your spell" (on "Walk On The Fire"), she’s not kidding.

A Chicagoan (by way of Texas and then New York), Frost gained critical attention with her debut album, "Calling Over Time."  While that album enlisted many of Chicago’s acclaimed experimentalists (Jim O’Rourke, David Grubbs) to create a sort of spacey Patsy Cline sound, this album is less neo-country and more fuzz-drenched folk.

While most of the songs deal with heartache and Frost’s choir-girl-on-tiptoes voice paints her as the one scorned, there’s definitely wit behind those walls.  "You Belong To No One" is almost a victory dance when Frost, after declaring "you’ll be lonely with your lover," hums the line merrily while an accordion does a jig.

The production by self-monikered Adam and Eve surrounds each song with deeply-plucked strings and fuzz guitar menace.  The rickety guitars make her sound like a cowgirl riding off in the distance on "Light" while the dancing violin and flute fuel life into the tragic elegy "Tender Kiss."

At times vocal and thematic similarities demand comparisons to Liz Phair.  But Frost’s songs are less obvious, dipping into waters more murky with the mysterious aura of night swimming.

Edith Frost performs 10 p.m. Saturday with dreamy Nebraska band Lullaby For The Working Class and roughshod Chicago songwriter Chris Mills at the Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave., Chicago.