LETHIAN DREAMS is an Atmospheric Doom Metal band based in France. Formed in 2002, the band has releases three previous full-length albums. "A Shadow of Memories" comes six years after their last album, and contains seven tracks. "Never be Forgotten" leads off the album. It opens with clean, somber guitar notes. A hard and heavy distorted riff drops, and the vocals are ethereal...almost see through. It's an absolutely beautiful song, and the amount of existential dread they have here is measured in metric tons.

"Tidal" is over eleven-minutes in length. Once again it opens with this alluring ambiance. Clean and distorted guitars combine, creating this longing in your heart. At first, the vocals are clean, and harmonized. I think harsh vocals would have worked here just fine as well, but as an album reviewer I appreciate the cleans as of late. Just before the half-way mark, the sound drops to just some atmospheric clean guitar notes and an occasional bass note, with dreamy vocals. It picks back up around the seven-minute mark, and just steals your heart. It's so sad and pretty that it absolutely destroys you. There is a long fade-out that takes your soul with it.

"Mist of Memories" opens with clean guitars and a doleful feeling. The clean vocals are more like depressing cries. The ambient passage after the half-way mark leads to charming vocals, harmonized in layers. "You Say" is a shorter song that features multiple guitar parts that, when, brought together create a blanket of warmth that can also double as a blanket of death. This album is full of that dualism...where bereavement marries with elegance in a way that only LETHIAN DREAMS can do.

"Only a Past" opens with distorted guitars and a majestic quality, as if you were hiking in the wilderness and suddenly, this gorgeous mountain peak rises before you into the clouds. You are speechless, and stare at it for hours. Like the mighty KATATONIA, LETHIAN DREAMS can create music that is both heavy and weighted, as well as expansive and whimsical. Carline croons with the best of them as well, invoking feelings of depression deep within you. "Your Silence" opens slowly with some building background ambiance, and some steady notes holding down the bottom end. Big, bold riffs crash down on you, and threaten to crush you both physically and emotionally. Lead guitars create multiple layers of pounding depression.

"And Hallow" closes the album. It opens with these pretty clean guitar tones, but still with that note of despondence that runs through every track. Carline doesn't necessarily sing...she weeps with deep meaning. Menacing, hard hitting distorted guitar notes take the song to another level. It closes back with clean guitars and delicate vocals. If the world is ever coming to an end, I want this album to ring out across the lands. They have created a world where you can enter and lose yourself in their dejected beauty, that you will never be able to come back out of again. Enter at your own risk.