There’s always a danger of confusing artist and art or stories and storytellers, especially when dealing with first-person perspective — like on “Girl of Little Faith,” one of the tracks on “Sooner,” the bleak-but-cathartic debut album from Liz Frame and the Kickers, in which a life-hardened narrator who has been kicked around long enough to be drained of hope, faith and even the possibility of redemption, rejects the old saw that good things come to those who wait. Nothing could be further from the truth for Frame, the Newburyport-based songwriter who decided to dive back in after nearly two decades away from the music scene and, much to her surprise, is making a big splash. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, just playing out once in a while at open mikes, not so much trying to jump-start the career that would have or could have been if she hadn’t walked away from it all those years ago, as much as trying to provide a creative outlet for the music that, career or not, still bubbled up inside her. She made an impression quickly, picking up fans and accomplices — and, before she knew it, she had a band. “It all came together in such an effortless way, it just felt right,” she says.
