Typical of this kind of music is the use of atmospheric guitar soundscapes, including sound effects like echo and delay. A second typical characteristic is the use of breathy male or high register female vocals – often with hard-to-decipher lyrical content – and a strong influence of ambient music. The website "A Study of Gothic subculture" describes it as being "most characterized by soprano female vocals combined with [...] bass, lead guitar, and drums which creates a surreal, angelic or otherworldly effect e.g. Love Spirals Downwards, Cocteau Twins.[...] Sometimes, a male vocalist will also be in the group along with the female vocalist. Even more rarely will there be only a male vocalist, but it is still considered ethereal if the mood created is otherworldly and surreal. The background music can also be electronic or soundscape oriented. It is currently a small division of music, and people who like this music are often called Goths."

There are overlaps between ethereal wave, shoegazing and dreampop, with many artists being heavily influenced by 4AD bands, Dead Can Dance, Cocteau Twins, and This Mortal Coil, as well as early All About Eve and Siouxsie and the Banshees. The American Ethereal group Siddal for example described their music as follows: "A product of influences such as the Cocteau Twins, Low, Slowdive, The Cure, and Dead Can Dance, use a blend of ambient music, shoegazer style guitars, synths and sequenced rhythms."

Ethereal is strongly associated with the Projekt label, which features some of the most well known names of the US scene. Other labels that feature some of the leading lights of the movement are Tess Records (This Ascension), Yvy Records (Faith & Disease) and Middle Pillar (Aenima).

Ether goths tend to like poetry and spirituality, and wear flowy clothes in both black and light colors such as lilac. They conjour up images of folklore and otherworldyness.

Info from wikipedia, last paragraph by me, image from deviantart.