Edith Frost

It's been four years since Edith Frost's last album, leaving only an online collection of four-track demos (well worth downloading for free at www.comfortstand.com) to keep her fans sated. It's a Game marks a retreat from the relatively lush sound of 2001's Wonder Wonder.On it, Frost harkens back to the spare, uncluttered tone of her earlier albums — which is good news, as her lonesome, quavering vocals tend to benefit from a bit of grit and open space. Game's songs are contemplative and downcast with their familiar urban-country twang (at least one, "Playmate," dates back to her mid-1990s Brooklyn days). But there is also an old-timey flavor in places that we really haven't heard from Frost before; you could easily imagine a young Patsy Cline singing such classically lovely songs as "If It Weren't for the Words" or the title track. It all adds up to a remarkably consistent album and one of Frost's strongest showings to date.