Issa - 'Queen of Broken Hearts'

“Angels Calling” is a very promising start. It has a touch of Heart / Roxette about it which suits Issa’s style very well. The second track “The Way Out” is a bit riffier and, like the opener, it benefits greatly from a classy guitar solo by Simone Mularoni. He’s normally the lead guitarist with Italian prog-metal band DGM so I’ll need to check them out. As before, this is a project by Alessandro del Vecchio with a Frontiers house-band providing the songs and the platform to shine.

There’s a run of songs, starting with track 5 “Blue”, that really raise the bar and smash any suggestion of this being a formulaic AdV / Frontiers AOR album. “Blue” is a cinematic belter with big drums and a hint of Bond-theme about it and Mularoni shines with a ‘Slash bursting out of the wee white chapel’ moment for his solo. The title track is an up-tempo romp riding along on the back of some exquisite twin-guitar work. “Derive” is a storming power ballad built on a superb guitar motif and our lass really sings her socks off on this one. Classy.

The quality stays high all the way to the end with Issa really showing what she can do vocally. “Without Love” and “Wait for Love” are both classy melodic rockers with Mularoni supplying some almost neo-classical flourishes on the former and Alessandro’s keyboards adding texture on the latter. “After the Rain” is again reminiscent of Heart (but with a better guitarist) and “Die for a Life with You” provides an authoritative finish.

I think this deserves to be a game changer for Issa but I fear it could be lost amongst possibly the best monthly batch of records from Frontiers in recent memory. Live dates would help raise her profile but that might still be difficult. If they can find a baby-sitter, a back-up slot to husband James Martin’s band Vega would do the trick.