Issa-Signs of angels

Frontiers
2010


Vocalist Isabell "Issa" Oversveen hails from Oslo, Norway. She has numerous guests on this album including musicians including guitarisr Peter Huss, drummer Uli Kusch (Masterplan, Helloween), bassists Nobby Noberg and Tim Larsson (Nick Lachey) on keyboards. She also received Songwriting contributions come from Joacim Cans (Hammerfall), Thomas Vickstrom (Candlemass) and others. The cover had me thinking more of show tunes than anything remotely related to hard rock. However being as it's on Frontiers records I figured there had to at least be some AOR material on here. Indeed there is, but Issa's sounded isn't just firmly cemented in the 80's. The album as a whole mixture of sounds including pop, AOR and hard rock as well as varies traits from different styles from the last three decades. So this album has a definite 80's flair, but it certainly has a modern slant as well. Even though she received a great deal of help in the writing department that doesn't actually mean the writing is spectacular. Several of the songs suffer from lyrical cliches and you certainly are not going to find much in the way deep meaningful topics contained here. However Issa has the kind of voice to make you pay attention and for the most part she does an admirable job. Several tracks lean more to a pop style that isn't my favorite, but she sounds comfortable handing both those type of tracks and the more hard rock styled efforts as well. All in all a good outing.