ROCK/POP

Delicate melancholy delivered with a sharp tongue, Edith Frost's first album in five years sifts through the ashes of a love gone cold. Like its cover photo of a menacing calliope horse, It's a Game (Drag City) laces lullaby prettiness with intimations of heartbreak to come. A chipper keyboard and bouncy beat can't hide the everything's-OK pretense of "It's a Game," while the only "dream" in "Just a Friend" is one that's already over. Frost's once vaguely countryish sound has given way to something airier and more vulnerable. Although she ironically reminds herself to "be a man about it," It's a Game is short on rote down-but-not-out declarations. The album's strength is in the fact that it exists at all.

Sat., Feb. 18, 10 p.m., $5, with The Zincs, Lunt Basement, Haverford College, 370 W. Lancaster Ave., Haverford, www.students.haverford.edu/fucs; Wed., Feb. 22, 8 p.m., $10, with Richard Buckner and The Zincs, First Unitarian Church, 22nd and Chestnut sts., 866-468-7619, www.r5productions.com.