ISSA is Norwegian singer Isabell Oversveen. She is helped out here by Ronny Milianowicz (Saint Deamon) on production and musicians such as Peter Huss on guitar, Uli Kusch (ex Masterplan, Helloween) on drums, Nobby Noberg on bass and Tim Larsson (Nick Lachey) on keyboards. In the songwriting department she has contributions from the likes of Joacim Cans (Hammerfall), Thomas Vickstrom (Candlemass), Daniel Flores (TMOMS) and Soren Kronkvist (Crash the System). Issa is 26 years old, but her career started as a demo singer at 17. During that period she been working with various Norwegian acts.
Not sure why, but I was expecting this album to sound along the lines of Nightwish, but instead with have an album that is best described as modern pop rock, but thankfully with more rock than pop. The press release talks about Brother Firetribe meets Treat, and I can see where it is coming from in terms of the big melodic rock sound and great harmonies. A little digging around suggests that the overall sound is closer to Crash The System who include Soren Kronkvist & with Daniel Flores handling production .
ISSA is the star of the show delivering an impressive note perfect performance. This is backed up by a suitably big production job to give an overall polished feel to the album. ISSA puts a lot of effort into each song making even the couple of potential fillers very listenable. If someone like Kelly Clarkson or Anastasia were to release a track like "Unbelievable", their profile would make it huge.
This is an impressive debut that I think I be listening to long after this review has been posted online.
Rating: 5 stars
