Nicole Atkins

A laid-back jersey girl who was equally into hair metal and her grandmother's Johnny Cash records, Nicole Atkins got started playing solo gigs at college in North Carolina, then moved home and gigged around New York's East Village. It was there that Atkins, 27, developed her strongest assets: a big voice full of longing and Loretta Lynn elegance, and slightly surreal folk-pop songs that evoke moonlit walks with the shadows closing in. Last year, Atkins scored a deal with Columbia Records; an EP, Bleeding Diamonds, is coming this summer and a full-length album late this year.

SOUND Like Rufus Wainwright with less piano, more atmosphere and a stronger pleasure principle. On Bleeding Diamonds, Atkins sets her swooping croon and dreamy melodies over sparkling strings, sha-la-la backup vocals and the light, loose jangle of her band, the Sea. "My songs are dark, but you can still do the mashed potato to them," Atkins says. "I want to sound like a girl group in a David Lynch movie."

HUNGRY HEART Atkins had a regular spot at an Irish bar in Jersey that eventually fired her for not playing enough Springsteen covers. In 2004, she opened for Vanessa Carlton. "She and I had the same haircut, so all the teenage girls in the audience went nuts when I came out," Atkins says. "I said, 'My songs might make you sad.' They were like, 'We love being sad!' "

SO MUCH MORE Atkins, an illustration student in college, is a visual artist and designer as well. She also has a musical side project in the works: an all-girl metal band called Cunt. "We're going to sound like a heavier version of Alice in Chains," she says. "It's going to be sick."

Next: Matt White