Her lonely hearts club

You can learn a lot about Edith Frost from her music, but you can learn even more from her website, www.edithfrost.com, which doubles as her blog. Everything you could want to know about this indie singer-songwriter is there. Tour announcements, opinions of other musicians (''Jolie Holland is my queen!"), and updates on her love life (more on that sticky subject later). There are message boards for fans, free MP3s to download, and even archives to a decade's worth of her online musings.

So then it comes as a surprise when Frost, who plays at P.A.'s Lounge on Monday, says she draws a firm line between her personal life and her career.

''When I started my blog in 1995 -- well, it wasn't even called a blog then; it was a journal -- people were absolutely shocked," she says from her home in Chicago. ''They couldn't believe I actually talked openly about people, sometimes even them. When I talk about my love life on my blog or in interviews, it tends to get quoted," she says.

That can be a problem. Around the time her latest album, ''It's a Game," came out, she announced on her blog that she had broken up with her boyfriend. Suddenly, interviewers were abuzz that the album chronicled her relationship's demise. Except it didn't.

''It wasn't that at all. I edit details out of my songs if I think they get too exact and personal about someone," she says. ''I don't like that. I don't like to sing those kinds of songs, and they don't make me comfortable. It's not supposed to be an exact mirror of who I am. I'm not that girl in the song. It's a story, yes, but it's not necessarily my story."

But with the album's obvious themes of heartache and loneliness, Frost's perennial songwriting motifs, isn't it a breakup album? ''Well, I don't think it's any more of a breakup record than my other records," she says.

Again, what you hear is not always what you get in Frost's real life. ''You know that part in 'Emergency' where I say, 'You want to spend your time with another woman'? That's not true. There was no other woman."

Despite her largely indie-rock following, Frost, a Texas native, actually writes in the vein of classic country. Not twangy, per se, but rather good old-fashioned lovesick blues. When she does get countrified, such as on ''A Mirage," it's something akin to a modern-day Kitty Wells tune. By her own account, this is the kind of song Frost writes best. She just happens to filter her songs through an indie-rock prism: plenty of reverb on the vocals, a casual guitar strum, and a forlorn attitude toward relationships.

She made her debut in 1997 with ''Calling Over Time," and then the next year she went electric and eclectic for ''Telescopic." Mostly, though, Frost has been careful to nurture a spartan aesthetic that plays up her strengths as a songwriter and vocalist. Hers is not a pitch-perfect voice; her dusky alto can quiver in and out of tune and dip into no man's land to mine her lower register. But much like with her influence Karen Dalton, her unvarnished singing style works perfectly to get to the heart of a song's emotions. On ''Playmate," when she laments, ''Seems like I'm walkin' around with a broken heart/ Too heavy to let me breath/ I want to find somebody/ To press against in the night," you truly believe her.

When it's suggested that despite all her critical acclaim, she remains an underrated talent, Frost quips, ''Well, that's better than being overrated. I've been really happy with the level of attention I've gotten over the years."

She never imagined any of the accolades. Her singing career started in the most cliched of places: at an open mike in New York City. Soon, Frost was singing in bands that covered country, then rockabilly, and finally old-timey. On a whim, she made a demo of songs she was writing on the side (''I thought they were good songs, but they weren't suited for the bands I was playing with") and sent it to a handful of labels she liked.

One of those labels was Drag City, a Chicago-based outfit whose roster Frost admired. Rian Murphy, who's head of staff at Drag City as well as a house producer, remembers receiving Frost's demos. He was impressed enough that he wanted to put out Frost's demo as it was. Frost was incredulous: ''I remember thinking, 'What? But those songs are just demos.' "

Murphy was adamant. ''Her voice and the vibe were really spectacular," he says. ''Our thought was that we'd want to do something with her in the studio, but for now we wanted to put out the demo. At the time we were just a few years removed from what they used to call 'lo-fi.' "

Murphy says it's easy to get the wrong impression of Frost given her particular songwriting bent. ''Her songs are a catalog of lonely-hearts perspectives."

But songs haven't been coming to Frost as easily lately. Four years had passed since her last album, 2001's acclaimed ''Wonder Wonder," a fact that Frost doesn't like to dwell on. ''No one rushes Edith Frost," she says self-mockingly before mentioning that she took that time to tour, contribute to other musicians' albums, and just plain relax after a taxing schedule.

As her producer and mentor, Murphy puts it in more specific terms. ''She really has slowed down as a songwriter, but part of it is that when she started, it was a hobby and something she did on the side," he says. ''For her, music is about expression. And there's nothing worse to kill expression than to think that you have to finish songs to have them carted off to the marketplace."

It makes Frost's confessions on ''If It Weren't for the Words," one of the best songs on ''It's a Game," all that more poignant: ''You could never tell a lie/ If it weren't for the words/ Or sing a sad goodbye/ If it weren't for the words/ I'd be feeling just fine/ If it weren't for the words."

Edith Frost plays at P.A.’s Lounge Monday at 9 p.m. 345 Somerville Ave., Somerville, 617-776-1557. Tickets: $9-$12. www.thecritique.org