Since Rockezine decided to review an album of Blackmore’s Night, and since we are more active on the Gothic market, this opened the door to review releases like this. The neo-folk, medieval music of ANGELS OF VENICE has the right to be reviewed, because the combination between harp, flute, cello and many more instruments leaves you puzzled. At first there’s rejection, because this is ‘night music’ you are used to hear from the likes of Enya, Dead Can Dance and the band mentioned earlier. If you’ve got the guts to listen more carefully the music opens up to you. It takes you to a fairyland filled with legends and magical moments. The music is inspired by images, the movies “Braveheart” and “First Knight” or is the result of other people (like ‘A Chantar Mer’ was originally written by Comtessa Beatriz de Dia, the only surviving piece of French medieval troubadour music written by a woman).

It’s like Carol Tatum, the mastermind behind this ANGELS OF VENICE, speaks out during ‘Awake Inside A Dream’: “As day turns to night, and we close our eyes, and leave this world, we find ourselves, awake… awake… awake inside a dream.” It’s just a pity that the traditional English melody of ‘Scarborough Faire’ and the self-written ‘Three Nightingales’ don’t have the quality of the other songs, otherwise we had been more puzzled to qualify this CD the right way.