With Principles, Lone Wanderer thus accomplishes a translation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy into the aesthetics of Funeral Doom. Their music becomes an objectification of his teachings: the tragedy of suffering, the ceaseless striving of the will, and the longing for redemption find an acoustic counterpart.

Schopenhauerian Funeral Doom

In the solitude of the hermit, the duality of withdrawal reveals itself: on the one hand as a flight from the constraints of society, on the other as a consciously chosen asceticism meant to lead to profound self-reflection.

Arthur Schopenhauer sees in the renunciation of the will a way to overcome the suffering inherent in existence. This philosophy is the core of Schopenhauer’s thought and the foundation for the music of Lone Wanderer, a band that explicitly invokes the principles of suffering. The retreat into nature, understood here not merely as escape but as a path to insight, leads into hermitic asceticism: a way of life that accepts suffering as an inherent part of human existence and pursues the search for a higher, inner truth as its goal. This connection of isolation, asceticism, and philosophical thought becomes perceptible in the sounds of Lone Wanderer.

Schopenhauer describes human existence in The World as Will and Representation as “caught in perpetual suffering and without lasting happiness.” This central idea, that life is essentially defined by suffering, forms the foundation both of Schopenhauer’s philosophy and of the music of the German project Lone Wanderer. The band, who describe their music as Schopenhauerian Funeral Doom, engage with remarkable consistency with Schopenhauer’s worldview and translate his thinking into crushing soundscapes.

In the liner notes of the EP Principles, Lone Wanderer name Schopenhauer, alongside the genre giant Mournful Congregation, who evidently served as the musical model, as a core influence. And the EP’s title points directly to an engagement with the principles of suffering, which the band also takes up musically and lyrically in its opening track, Principles of Suffering.

To grasp the conceptual layer of the EP, a basic understanding of Schopenhauer’s philosophy is essential, particularly his view of the will and of suffering, which serves as the conceptual core for Lone Wanderer.

Schopenhauer describes the world, in his terminology, as “my representation”, something that exists only in relation to the perceiving subject. This insight, however, remains superficial, since behind the world of appearances the will becomes recognizable as an aimless driving force underlying all life. The will compels the individual toward a constant striving for the satisfaction of needs. Yet since no goal offers final satisfaction, all striving inevitably leads into suffering. This produces an unsatisfying cycle of lack and the urge toward fulfillment, through which life appears as continuous suffering.

Principles of Suffering

For Lone Wanderer, this bleak insight becomes the creative foundation. In Principles of Suffering, the band explicitly points to the dualism of striving and suffering that Schopenhauer describes.

Musically, this existential tragedy is made tangible through the dragging tempo, the droning guitars, and the ominous interplay between growled despair and resigned spoken vocals. For four minutes, the guitar work, which keeps circling back in the mind, hangs heavy and exhausting on the limbs. The drums thicken the weight of the music and cling to the mind, while Bruno Schotten first delivers the first two verses in deep growls before presenting the bitter realization of the third verse in a tragically restrained spoken tone. The line “only the utter climax exceeds all expectations. These are the principles of suffering” (Principles of Suffering) reflects the insight that striving brings no fulfillment, finding an end only in death. The music then moves poignantly into an acoustic bridge, a brief pause for breath, the moment of need satisfaction that temporarily relieves the tragedy, but only intensifies it further when it returns, throwing the inescapable cycle of suffering and striving into even sharper relief. The insight lingers and finds its continuation and consequence. Through the shift in guitar work, the music loses its circling weight and gives way more to a descending tragedy, while the lyrics, again delivered as spoken word, point once more to the principle of suffering.

We see striving everywhere hindered in many ways, everywhere struggling; and so, always, suffering: no final goal of striving, therefore no measure and no end to suffering.
(Schopenhauer, Arthur: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung I und II., S.404.)

Only the end of existence, the last and greatest climax, brings this failure and suffering to a close.

A Morbid Portrayal

The following track, A Morbid Portrayal, likewise remains closely aligned with Schopenhauer’s teaching but expands it with the satanic symbol of the black flame. While the black flame is interpreted in various satanic currents as a symbol of the striving for self-realization or cosmic chaos, Lone Wanderer reads it as an inner conflict between the will to live and the longing for dissolution. This conflict does not point toward a celebration of the self-aware ego, as is often the case in Thelemic occultism, but toward Schopenhauer’s ideal of redemption through renunciation. The music carries this idea by oscillating between heavy, circling guitars and moments of acoustic stillness. This dynamic mirrors the inner turmoil: the tension between the pressure of the will and the desire to escape it.

The band goes further still, combining Schopenhauer’s atheistic pessimism with an element of loneliness and existential abandonment reminiscent of Kierkegaard. The line “Gone is all ambition. Lifeless is the shell. Divine gifts have perished. Truth has overwhelmed us” describes a state of total resignation that draws on both Schopenhauer’s ideal of asceticism and the cold emptiness of a Funeral Doom clearly oriented toward Mournful Congregation: not a triumph of the ego, but a bitter acceptance of suffering as a universal constant.

A Precious Matter

The dynamic of A Morbid Portrayal ultimately culminates in a climax of dissolution: as the guitars build toward an ever greater tragedy near the end, the will to exist is progressively deconstructed — both musically and thematically. In the closing track, A Precious Matter, this development reaches its finale. Lone Wanderer reflects the conscious attempt to overcome the will through self-sacrifice. The lament of the vocals merges with the resigned instrumentation and strives ultimately toward a point of redemption, expressed musically in an almost sacral solemnity.

Conclusion

So like I wrote in the Beginning, With Principles, Lone Wanderer thus accomplishes a translation of Schopenhauer’s philosophy into the aesthetics of Funeral Doom, an objectification of his teachings: the tragedy of suffering …
And unlike representatives of depressive black metal f.ex., Lone Wanderer does not limit itself to a mere glorification of pain and despair, but consistently points to the philosophical foundations of its music. Lone Wanderer’s interpretation of Funeral Doom thus stands in line with Schopenhauer’s ideal of asceticism: the conscious turning away from the blind will, the acceptance of suffering, and the inward-directed search for a state beyond human desires: a search that also manifests itself in a stoic equanimity toward encounters with the Other.