Who: Bodies of Water, a Los Angeles quartet comprised of two men and two women who, after successful tours with The Go! Team and Breaking alum Holy Fuck, are looking to recruit you into their choir.

Sounds Like: The Arcade Fire as composed by Ennio Morricone. The band funnels roots rock, soaring gospel, the Mamas & the Papas-style harmonies and Spaghetti Western themes into an uplifting, California-baked package. Despite their foursome status, the band pack a Polyphonic Spree-sized wallop on their debut album Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink, as singer-songwriter David Metcalf (along with his wife, Meredith) lead a battalion of blaring horns and strings.

Three Things You Should Know:

1. "When we first started, we were called Unicorn of Death," David Metcalf says, "It was funny for a little while, but any kind of funny band name gets tired really fast." Just ask the Test Icicles. "It took me a while to get out of the funny-band-names thing. I was in a band in high school called Hitler's Gay Son," Metcalf says. The band ultimately got its name after a weather broadcast during a heat wave recommended people gather near "bodies of water."

2. Metcalf has a long history of odd day jobs, from working at a Boston Market ("I wasn't cutting meat fast enough, so they moved me to dishwasher. Dishwashing was awesome") to writing analogies for SAT tests to fact-checking Harry Potter trivia games ("I may be the world's only expert on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets who did not actually read this book," Metcalf says in his detailed résumé on the band's Web site.)

3. The band quickly learned about the perks of stardom when they accidentally were treated to Death Cab for Cutie's backstage rider during a San Francisco concert. "Usually, our rider is just a six-pack of Coors," Metcalf says, "but in San Francisco, it was amazing. There were fifty beers, a bottle of Maker's Mark, a fruit basket, a candy basket, a case of bottled water, towels, hummus and pita bread. We brought our friends from San Francisco backstage and they were all suitably impressed."

Get It: Bodies of Water's Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink is out now in stores and on iTunes. Above, check out the band performing their Morricone-tinged "Doves Circled the Sky" live.

Who: U.K. ska-pop troubadour Jack Peñate, who, after conquering the harsh British club scene and the harsher British charts, is setting his sights on North America.

Sounds Like: Jeff Buckley with a pompadour and checkered Vans for dancing. Piñate's debut album Matinee finds the twenty-two-year-old Londonite singing songs of missing home and unrequited love while showcasing his mastery of both the neo-ska and pop genres.

Three Things You Should Know:

1. How harsh is the British club scene? The performers are often robbed — while onstage. "I took my guitar off, and a kid came up and stole it," Peñate reminisces about a recent show. "He knicked the guitar, put it under his arm and almost left before the bouncers stopped him." Instruments aren't the only things in danger of thievery. "I got this hat in Japan, and some kid I invited onto the stage to sing a song knicked it and got away." Thankfully, a desperate plea on Peñate's MySpace page helped usher the safe return of his favorite hat.

2. The first CD Peñate bought was the single for Tori Amos' "Cornflake Girl." "I don't think I even listened to it," he says, "I just liked the cover." More recently, Peñate's been enjoying Beirut's The Flying Club Cup and even paid a couple quid for Radiohead's In Rainbows.

3. After a short stint in the band Jack's Basement, Peñate decided to go solo. "I've always liked the idea of freedom," says Peñate, "Plus a solo artist can't break up, and he can't have a reunion either." And in case you were wondering, his last name is pronounced "Pen-Yah-Tay."

Get It: Peñate's Matinée arrives on American shores on January 22nd. Until then, check out his music — and eye-catching videos — at his MySpace page, and watch the video for "Torn on the Platform" above.

Who: U.K. punks Gallows, a five piece from London led by frontman Frank Carter who rocked the stage raw at this year's Reading Festival and Warped Tour.

Sounds Like: Pure punk in the tradition of the Clash and Black Flag, but with subtle ska and pop influences. Their debut album, Orchestra of Wolves, blends brutal riffs with pop hooks and thoughtful lyrics.

Three Things You Should Know:

1. If you stand with your hands in your pockets when you go to a Gallows' show, Carter will yell at you. Gallows are infamous for verbally assaulting non-responsive crowds, and sometimes even dive into the crowd to physically assault audience members. It should come as no surprise that most Gallows shows end with Carter bloodied. "My favorite memories are of turning punk all-dayers into fucking riots — ruining these people's days," he says.

2. At this year's Reading Festival, where the band played a much-heralded performance, Carter, who moonlights as a tattoo artist, was inked onstage by the guitarist of New Found Glory.

3. Gallows have officially "made it": Their single "In the Belly of a Shark" was featured in the video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. But Carter says he's still a humble kid. "When the band started doing better I moved back in with my mum," he says.

Get It: Gallows' Orchestra of Wolves is in stores now. Check out the video for their cover of the Ruts' "Staring at the Rude Boys" by clicking above.

Who: Dirty South rapper Radric "Gucci Mane" Davis, who after spending some time behind bars, has learned to translate a life of crime into lyrical street anthems.

Sounds Like: Gucci's new album Back to the Traphouse finds the Bessemer, Alabama native unleashing crime-thick lyrics with his patented Southern drawl over explosive synth beats and sing-song hooks. The album, a sequel of sorts to his debut Traphouse, features guest spots from Ludacris, Lil' Kim, Rich Boy, the Game and late UGK rapper Pimp C.

Three Things You Should Know:

1. Gucci killed a man — in self-defense. While visiting the home of a female friend in 2005, Gucci was forced to shooter down an intruder after the man (an associate of Young Jeezy, with whom Gucci has an ongoing beef) stormed into the room, guns blazing. While Gucci didn't serve time for that incident (again, self-defense), he did serve six months in the slammer for beating another man with a pool stick.

2. Gucci passed time in the pen (he was locked-down twenty-three hours a day) writing a screenplay about his life. The son of an Atlanta hustler nicknamed "Gucci Man," Mane started out on his father's path by dealing crack at the age of nineteen. After his release from prison, Mane got an important pep talk from another rapper. "Ludacris told me to keep my nose clean," Gucci says, "I plan on doing that."

3. He may have a rep as a thug, but Gucci says he's laid-back and isn't afraid to show off his sense of humor. He even got his start as a rapper doing comic remakes of hit songs. "I would remake 'The Humpty Dance' as 'The Gucci Dance,'" he says, chuckling. "I was like a ghetto Weird Al."

Get It: Gucci Mane's Back to the Traphouse hit record stores yesterday. Click above to check out his video for "Freaky Gurl."

Who: Soulful Brit-pop quintet (with a horn section) who originally bonded over Captain Beefheart and Tom Waits while growing up in a tiny English town, but soon developed a taste for reggae, ska, rockabilly and harmonies.

Sounds Like: The group's debut EP Alarm Clock is stocked with tightly wound tunes featuring horn rave-ups and ska rhythms that take cues from British 2-Tone groups such as Madness and the Specials, as well as Dexys Midnight Runners.

Three Things You Should Know:

1. Frontman Charlie Waller often writes about his small-town British upbringing, from the dead-end day jobs to simply walking around the neighborhood. "I'm just singing about everyday things," he says. "I try to think like Jonathan Richman and write songs that you can't tell if they're clever or quite stupid and childlike."

2. The push and pull between Waller's pop sensibility and his bandmates' punk leanings is evident on tracks like "Cowboy," a lilting rockabilly tune that kicks into a ferocious anthem. "Bands were doing punky stuff in London" when he was growing up, Waller explains. "Everyone was screaming. And all I cared about was sweet harmonies."

3. "Cowboy" is a highlight from the group's forthcoming full-length Girls and Weather, a record that captures Waller's early days living in a small town and working as a house painter. "Sometimes I miss being a laborer and having a job that's physical and easy," he says. "But then I'dd think 'What was I thinking? That job was shit! Being in a band is so much better than that."

Get It: Alarm Clock is available in stores and tracks can be heard on the Rumble Strips' MySpace (*Girls and Weather* is due early next year). Click above to check out the video for "Alarm Clock."

>> Watch every episode of our weekly New Breaking Artist video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Wednesday, an exclusive video profile of an emerging artist will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

Rolling Stone Artist to Watch Kate Nash — who we memorably described as Lily Allen mixed with Regina Spektor and a granny dress — is hitting the road for a short trek in the new year (tickets go on sale December 7th). If you live in Toronto, New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles you can experience Nash's boyfriend-bashing tunes set to piano and acoustic guitar in person on these dates:

1/7 - Toronto @ Mod Club
1/9 - New York City @ Bowery Ballroom
1/12 - San Francisco @ 330 Ritch
1/14 - Los Angeles @ Troubadour

Who: Super-quirky twenty-four-year-old Cleveland native Joe Williams, who records experimental electronic music under the alias White Williams, and has toured extensively with his friend and fellow pastiche-aficionado Gregg Gillis a.k.a. Girl Talk.

Sounds Like: Williams takes a mad-scientist approach to his debut album Smoke, chopping, looping and reshuffling samples (sometimes randomly) of P-Funk bass lines and vintage drum clips. The result is an engrossing, dancey, atmospheric patchwork that takes cues from T. Rex, David Bowie and Brian Eno.

Three Things You Should Know:

1. The cover of Smoke — which features a transexual model sucking a hookah hose while crying — was, well, based on a true story. "There was this girl smoking weed while bawling about a guy," he recalls of the party tale that inspired the shot. "Being sad and wanting to be high is so weird, and I tried to re-create that weirdness."

2. Williams' lyrics are unsurprisingly deliberately cryptic. "A song could be about sex, or robbery, or it could be from an animal's point of view," he says. "It's never 'I want to write about my wicked stepmother.' " (For the record, he doesn't have one.)

3. More celebrities pay attention to Williams in his way-out-there-musician guise than did when he was a graphic designer or the drummer for a noise-metal band. "The little man from Twin Peaks [actor Michael J. Anderson] was at my L.A. show!" he says. "And he had a posse!"

Get It: Smoke came out November 6th on Tigerbeat6, and music is available on White Williams' MySpace. Click above to check out Williams in action at a New York show, plus an additional video interview where he tells the story of a random night out with Kelis and Pharrell.

>> Watch every episode of our weekly New Breaking Artist video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Wednesday, an exclusive video profile of an emerging artist will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

It's time to meet the new kids who'll rule 2008: the A&R; girl turned New Wave singer; the Led Zep disciple from L.A.; the home-schooled hippie folk-rocker. To read more about Santogold, MGMT, OneRepublic and seven more up and comers — and to check out videos and must-have tracks from the whole bunch — click here.

WHO Talk about a self-made star: British singer-rapper Estelle spent her childhood "flipping secular music to gospel" with her eight siblings. "We'd take Brandy's 'Best Friend' and make it about God being your best friend," says the twenty-seven-year-old West London native, born Estelle Swaray. Years later, she took a job at a London record shop frequented by stars like Talib Kweli, and started making her own rap albums. But local labels were baffled by her unique style. "That's been the story of my career," Estelle says, sighing. " 'We don't know what to do with you because it's not been done before.' So I just do it myself."

SOUND Estelle started a label, released mix tapes and approached a pre-College Dropout Kanye West cold after spotting him outside Roscoe's House of Chicken 'n Waffles in Los Angeles. Kanye hooked her up with John Legend, and the two R&B singers hit it off at a studio the next day, and later collaborated on The 18th Day, her debut full-length, which got play nearly everywhere but the States. Together, Legend and Estelle also prepped her forthcoming album, Shine, the first release on Legend's Homeschool Records. Kanye, Mark Ronson, Swizz Beatz and Cee-Lo make cameos on the disc, which swings with the boogie funk of "American Boy" and reggae-rooted tracks like "Magnificent."

REMINDS ME OF . . . When Estelle jumps from singing the hook of the Will.i.am-produced soul-hop single, "Wait a Minute (Just a Touch)," into a laid-back but feisty rap, it's nearly impossible not to mouth the words "Lauryn Hill" — even Wyclef Jean says Estelle's an artistic dead ringer for the Fugee. But Legend says his protégé holds her own creatively. "I think because she's West African and West Indian and British, that unique blend comes through in the eclectic nature of the album," he says.

Cementing that point, Estelle reveals, "Freddie Mercury is my dude, and I loved Guns n' Roses, Aerosmith and Duran Duran." And if that sounds like a strange combination of influences to you, she doesn't really mind. "Love me or hate me, who gives a damn?" she says with a laugh. "I'm a real chick."

>> Watch every episode of our weekly New Breaking Artist video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click "Launch application"). Every Wednesday, an exclusive video profile of an emerging artist will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don't have iTunes, download it here.]

WHO Liam Finn is such a dynamic performer that a biker gang once forced him to play all night. When the New Zealand singer-songwriter was in his first band at age sixteen, some brawny motorcyclists invited the group back to their clubhouse for an after-party gig. "We were like, 'OK, we're going to stop playing,' and they were like, 'No, you're not!' " Finn recalls. "All of a sudden it was seven in the morning, and they were all off their faces." Luckily, his more recent gigs have been less intimidating: The twenty-four-year-old has toured with Crowded House, his dad Neil Finn's band, over the past year while also recording his gorgeous folk-rock solo album, I'll Be Lightning.

SOUND Recorded with a mixing deck that once belonged to the Who, I'll Be Lightning melds Elliott Smith-style melodies with loosey-goosey execution and the big, airy harmonies of yacht rock. Finn plays every instrument on the album — and during live shows. Triggering loops he creates via pedals, he'll riff on guitar, go nuts on theremin and pummel a drum kit for a one-man-band extravaganza. "The aesthetic is DIY, leaving the woolly edges," he explains.

IN THE NAME OF ... During his decade-long career, Finn has learned a valuable lesson about band names. His first one was Betchadupa. "I got a T-shirt that said 'Betchadupa I'm Polish,'" he says. "I later found out it meant 'Bet your ass I'm Polish.' It wasn't a wise move because we were forever asked what it means." Things have been smoother as plain old Liam Finn, he says. "Plus, it's a lot easier to stay alive when you're only looking after yourself."

>> Watch every episode of our weekly New Breaking Artist video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click "Launch application"). Every Wednesday, an exclusive video profile of an emerging artist will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don't have iTunes, download it here.]