Eight to watch in '08

Pop music critics Joan Anderman, Sarah Rodman, and James Reed forecast the year ahead
Nicole Atkins

NICOLE ATKINS Her voice sounds like it traveled through the decades, crossed state lines, and knocked back a few shots before arriving - ardent, humongous, and untethered to time and place - in the body of a modern Jersey girl. There's history here: Roy Orbison and Loretta Lynn, classic rock, occasional dashes of musical theater, Jimmy Reed, Leonard Cohen. Atkins once said she wanted to sound like a girl group in a David Lynch movie, and her new album, "Neptune City," a deep, effervescent collection of noir Americana, fills that bill. Check out Atkins Feb. 15 at T.T. the Bear's before she moves (and it will be soon) into bigger rooms.