heavy-metal-darkness: Lone Wanderer |Exequiae |High Roller Records

Saturday, January 24, 2026

Lone Wanderer |Exequiae |High Roller Records

Release Date 30.01.2026
Format CD/LP/Digital
Genre Funeral/Doom/Death Metal
Country Germany

Lone Wanderer comes out of Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, bringing total misery to the table. They formed back in 2014 and have been dragging their sound through the mud ever since. After dropping an EP and two full-length albums, "The Majesty Of Loss" and "The Faustian Winter", they have now landed on High Roller Records for their third major release. The band operates as a four-piece unit with Bruno Schotten on vocals and guitars, Jonas Weber handling the other guitar, Simon Brooker on bass, and Jakob Zeblin smashing the drums. They handle their own recording and mixing, keeping their vision intact without outside interference.

This album is a heavy, crushing experience from the first second. "Exequiae" translates to funeral rites, and the band delivers exactly that. The music moves at a glacial pace, letting every riff hang in the air until it suffocates you. It is thick, distorted, and incredibly bleak. The band channels the end of culture and inner grief, creating a soundscape that is pure darkness. You can hear the influence of the romantic painter Ernst Ferdinand Oehme in the atmosphere, matching the cover art perfectly. It is cold, foggy, and depressingly beautiful.

One of the craziest things here is a monster track that runs for nearly twenty-five minutes. Most bands would fall apart trying to sustain that length, but Lone Wanderer keeps the tension high. They mix up the standard funeral doom formula by throwing in blasts and faster death metal sections. These bursts of aggression stop the album from becoming a bore. The harmonies are dense and layered, stacking guitar upon guitar to build a wall of sound. Schotten’s vocals are deep and guttural, reanimating from the grave.

Since the band produced this themselves, the audio quality is raw and uncompromising. The drums thud with a dull ache and the bass rumbles deep in your chest. The guitars have distinct fuzz that adds to the overall grime of the recording. It sounds like a funeral mass played in slow motion. The German quartet has created something that is difficult to create but rewarding to listen to if you like your metal extremely exequial and heavy.

"Exequiae" is a solid addition to every funeral doom metal catalog. It is miserable, heavy, and majestic in its own twisted way. Lone Wanderer proves they belong on a label like High Roller with this release. They have crafted a soundtrack for the end of days. If you want supreme heaviness and songs that crush your soul, this is the album to get.

Score: 8.5