Already a pop star in the United Kingdom, Newton Faulkner has a soulful, I-love-the-'90s croon. He crafts catchy, acoustic-based songs that showcase his distinctive guitar style, a wild mix of fingerpicking, tapping and slapping. His debut album is a confident, impressively kaleidoscopic effort featuring simple, Jack Johnson-y beach tunes ("People Should Smile More"), yearning post-grunge ballads ("Uncomfortably Slow") and virtuoso instrumentals. The breezy "Dream Catch Me," a huge radio smash in Britain, has already garnered airplay stateside, and "I Need Something" could be the gospel version of a lost Audioslave outtake. Sure, Faulkner is not the first melancholic man-with-guitar to cover Massive Attack's "Teardrop," but he drums the beat on the body of his instrument, showing us that, while his music is full of echoes, he's going his own way. —Sven Philipp