Philadelphia Weekly review

In 1999, in a review of Edith Frost’s second full-length, Telescopic, David Keenan wrote in Wire magazine, "It’s rumored that the album was originally fully orchestrated, but Drag City ordered it to be stripped back to basics.*  Now there’s a potential bootleg worth killing for, if only to hear Frost nuzzling up to strings."  Keenan must be thrilled by Frost’s latest album, Wonder Wonder, also on Drag City, which has no shortage of strings.  It is, in a word, lush.

Edith Frost, in case you haven’t heard of her, has been put into every box imaginable, from Nashville honky-tonker to heir to the throne of Leonard Cohen.  There’s no question her roots are rootsy and some of her songs — "Easy To Love" and "Honey Please" — bring to mind early Patsy Cline, swinging her skirt as she sings to her dancehall crowd.  But she’s also echoing newer models, with songs like "You’re Decided," on which she sounds exactly like Liz Phair — albeit one prettily singing, "I can’t stay mad at you / As long as there’s a sparkle of light…"  And it sounds even more like Phair when a fuzzy electric guitar makes its entrance toward the end.  The title track, which is funny, employs a sort of Appalachian percussion — as if she rumbled around her house and decided to use everything including the kitchen sink.  "True," the first track, is what’ll slay David Keenan, though, with its shimmering string section, a piano that, like her voice, is achingly pure here, and the use of both triangle and cymbal that dignifies those high-school-band bottom-feeders.  <…>