Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

You may have a guardian angel watching over you, one that makes sure you don’t do anything reckless or stupid or just plain idiotic, you may have one that even manages to make sure you succeed in all that you endeavour to pursue; how many of these Imaginary Creatures though will go all the way, how many of us would see The Blood of Angels?

Imaginary Creatures have already given many a reason to exhale deeply with their music, the superb Danse Macabre being a case in point in which music danced past the ideals of the supposed boundaries laid down by the fashionable and the cliques, and in this new creation. The fearlessness of expansion and the absolute joy in playing songs that bounce between cinematic noir, a night of absolute jazz or the finest of Rock is one that is undisguised, unfailing in its duty and positively recommended.

The Blood of Angels is not easily spilt, it is not one that cries out in agony as wings are perhaps clipped or shorn by an avenging demon and yet it is arguably, thanks to literature, music and art, one possible could be seen to happen when a human being embraces a love that has always been denied them, when a single person is able to take the world on at its own game; not only does the angel shed blood, but it allows itself to be creative in its own destruction.

In tracks such as the brilliant Lost In The City Of The Night, Lonely Never Again, Shades of Grey, Homesick Blues and the overwhelming The Book Of Dreams, Imaginary Creatures not only are caught forever on the sides of the angels, they are supplied with rations, expertise and the chance to fight dirty against a world that has already damned them.

A superb follow up to the previous two albums by the band, The Blood of Angels may be spilt, it may flow with the angst of a seraphim but it is one that never relents when the cause is just and the music perfectly beautiful. Imaginary Creatures have once again delivered an album of beguiling craft.

Ian D. Hall