January 2026 finds LONE WANDERER releasing their third full length named “Exequiae” with the help of High Roller Records. I’m going to say this from the start: if you’re into Funeral Doom because of SPECTRAL VOICE, this is not really for you. There isn’t much Death Metal (or Death / Doom) influence here, this is true Funeral Doom Metal for fans of bands like SKEPTICISM or ESOTERIC. You might also enjoy this if you’re into the Gothic Doom or Melodic Doom scenes. Or maybe you’re just passionate about the extremity of really slow and long songs, because LONE WANDERER sure deliver the goods. I’ve always found a lot of Funeral Doom Metal to sound quite majestic and epic. Even though most bands focus their lyrical themes on depression and emptiness, the music itself makes it seem like a stoic declaration. Think about EVOKEN’s first album’s title “Embrace The Emptiness”, it sounds resolute. This is also the case with the sounds of “Exequiae”. The Death Metal elements are missing, there is no dissonance (well maybe a bit on the second song titled ‘Existence Nullified’, but that’s it), no disgusting vocals, no tremolo picking, just tragedy and slow tempos. A peculiar thing you might notice is the frequent use of major intervals to build the riffs. It sort of puts you at ease with the meaninglessness of existence. The vocals keep it in the lower register for most of the time, but there are parts where there are spoken word like passages, where the instrumental also takes a cleaner tone, the percussion missing entirely. These parts reminded me of BETHLEHEM’s “Dark Metal” album. Speaking of percussion, the drumming is quite minimalistic which is perfect for the genre and the added reverb is also spot on for evoking the image of vast emptiness and solitude. I may have wandered a bit myself from the subject at hand, but if all these references seem familiar or intriguing you might want to set aside some time (more than usual) and give it a listen. I personally listened to LONE WANDERER’s “Exequiae” while taking a long train ride through snowy landscapes and it couldn’t have been more appropriate. www.facebook.com/lonewandererdoom, www.facebook.com/hrrecords