(Note: This show was canceled on October 14 and will be rescheduled.)

When Rock Island native Lissie Maurus performed in the Quad Cities in November, she had just released the EP Why You Runnin', and it seemed to promise that more aching folk would follow.

Three of the EP's five songs ("Little Lovin'," "Everywhere I Go," and "Oh Mississippi") made the cut on the full-length Catching a Tiger, but only the first of those - with its escalating, building soul - foreshadowed her album's stunning pop path.

There's no doubt that Lissie is a strong singer, with a throaty voice full of color and conviction and frayed around the edges. But good folk music requires sterling wordplay, and I worried that Maurus might not yet have the songwriting chops to carry a record of lightly adorned songs, even with her considerable pipes.

So Catching a Tiger - released in August - is a major and welcome surprise. A handful of producers and co-writers developed tracks around Maurus' voice, and she takes flight within the dynamic tunes. I heard Cat Power and Neko Case in the spare arrangement of her EP, but Catching a Tiger finds her in the smartly fleshed-out company of Tori Amos and Fiona Apple; the aural richness augments and supports fundamentally strong material.