Star Queen is a product of singer and composer Stella Tormanoff’s creative brain. The band consists of musicians from Bulgaria, Sweden, Finland and Greece with as most prominent member Bob Katsionis. The music on Faithbringer can be described as traditional epic power metal with neoclassical and gothic influences.

Although it all sounds quite well thought out (despite its quite corny fantasy cover), it is the far below par production that drags this album down. The overall sound is terribly weak and most of the excellent keyboard work gets lost in the background, while Stella’s slightly annoying vocals dominate the album a little bit too much.

Her reach however is great and the vocal melodies are generally very well sung with a good amount of variation.

Faithbringer is an album that, due to its complex compositions, really has to grow on you. If you are looking for an original power metal album and don’t care too much about the quality of the production then this is certainly the album for you. Although the biography likens Star Queen to Nightwish, I can’t really find any comparisons between riff oriented Nightwish and song focused Star Queen.