Band:	Lethian Dreams
Album:	Red Silence Lodge
Style:	Atmospheric doom metal
Release date:	April 30, 2014
A review by:	R'Vannith

01. Red Silence Lodge
02. Shades
03. Dust
04. Midwinter
05. Leaving Light
06. Don't Hold On To Me
07. Black Winds

To be specifically noted for atmosphere within doom metal requires a particular kind of approach to the genre. The Parisian band Lethian Dreams have released their third record in a style which would place great significance on the meaning of ambience, with an accommodating sound made more substantial in Red Silence Lodge.

The expression of melancholic emotion is as clear as glass, made possible most effectively in the vocal performance of Carline Van Roos; a solitary and clean delivery heralding a distinctive unison with the instrumentation. The latter provides a more formative basis for the metal of this record, when compared with the lighter and atmospherically focused Season Of Raven Words. The clean singing arrangements remain much the same, though they are more suitably contextualised by further emphasis of the rhythm section in this effort, the guitars more readily establishing their forward position in the mix.

Stylistically, the album is doom metal managed with an obvious influence from black metal of the more atmospheric and melodically tangible variety, as frequent tremolo perpetuates much of the album's borrowed elements. The record maintains a strong shoegazing quality in conjunction with the prolonged vocal delivery, making for a rather unchanging basis of the album's overall sound. Monotony is quite likely a word that some would come to use to describe it, despite the effectiveness of such a straightforward and neatly written monotone that so often leads to a well realised culmination by the end of a tune. Examples such as "Shades" and "Leaving Light" take on an increased pace and higher point of shoegazing atmospheric black influence toward their conclusion, and as such represent more obvious points at which said influence represents a primary element and variation in the album's focused stylistic direction.

There is little distinction between each of the album's seven tracks, to the point at which they tend to blur together into one unaltered listen. While this allows for thorough absorption of the material available, it does present an album which is obviously lacking in variety, the track-list setting into a consistent pace throughout with only the points of higher tempo moving the sound in a different way.

In comparison with the band's prior efforts, Red Silence Lodge is the better produced and more densely composed album, consequently sounding heavier while also maintaining room for the softly emotive vocal arrangements. The record possesses a greater weight in its tone, as the band have found a well realised balance between the metal basis and its atmospheric components, rather than acting as a lighter interpretation of doom in support of the vocals. In other words, the doom stylised singing isn't relied upon to such a high degree as they were in their more dominant position in Season Of Raven Words, instead receiving better placement here with the instrumentation.

Since removing the harsh vocals from their sound in the debut record Black Silver Streams, and finding focus in vocal expression, this latest effort is the more substantial in instrumentation of the two which have followed, and the best representation of the band's atmospheric aims.