Rock quartet Nicola, a recent Billboard Underground headliner, could make Evanescence bow in reverence, given the grit and grimace of lead singer and band namesake Nicola. Despite fist-waving bravado, she offers a distinguished brag sheet. After graduating from New York's Fiorello LaGuardia School of Performing Artists, Nicola worked in Nashville and Argentina as frontwoman, guitarist-for-hire and Broadway performer. "Lighthouse" trades between a canvas of inky melodic goth featuring the impetuous clamor of high-octane guitars, against passages of plucky acoustic strumming, as she vocally segues from vocal roar to refined rustle. It's an all-in-one track offering unadulterated pop/rock mastery, alongside the hearty intelligence of 11-track, radio-ready "Don't Take It Personally." Visit nicolanicola.com for more on this adroit new presence. —Chuck Taylor