Since forming in 2009, German black-metal stalwarts DER WEG EINER FREIHEIT are said to have carved out nothing short of a singular place in modern black metal with their signature philosophical musings on our human condition, served on a platter of both blistering aggression and haunting serenity. Their sixth studio album “Innern” made its way to my delicate ears a little bit late – the album came out on September 12th, 2025, already, via Season of Mist – but better late than never! I found the band through the music video for the song, “Eos,” posted on social media, and what forced me to prick my ears was indeed the immaculate mixture of atmospheric, almost post-rockish serenity and snarling black-metal intensity. I simply had to dig into this album to figure out what this band was all about. The band’s name translates to English as “The Way of Freedom,” and it implicitly suggests that these rogues aren’t very likely to follow the most beaten paths when it comes to making music. They are by far not the first band to mix serene beauty with the sheer dissonance of black metal, but they certainly do it much better than most. Back in the day, what compelled me to purchase EMPEROR‘s “The Discipline of Fire & Demise” was one innocuous comment on YouTube, claiming that this particular album crowned the band as the PINK FLOYD of black metal. Well, that was a long time ago. With the evidence provided by this magnificent endeavor, I would say the new heir apparent to that title has finally been found.
The album kicks off with a 9-minute emotional rollercoaster ride entitled “Marter.” Lyrically, the song explores the subject of shared suffering as a path to transcendence, and the music certainly lives up to the topic. I have stumbled upon the term, “transcendental black metal,” a few times recently, and while I’m not entirely sure about its particulars, I’m pretty sure that it’s quite a befitting adjective for this particular song; transcendence is all about evolving beyond the limitations of our physical world, and this banger certainly helps in attaining a sort of higher state of consciousness through its sheer intensity.
Next, “Xibalba” is another deep soul-dive. After pounding the listener with blast beats for 5 minutes or so, things take a more haunting turn, eventually calming down to an almost hymn-like reverence. Halfway into this 10-minute epic, the section that begins with some ambient synths is a straight-up gut punch of the highest caliber, reminiscent of some of the most soul-churning moments in CULT OF LUNA‘s discography. At this point, I was already poised to dub this song as the absolute highlight of the album, but the band had a few more aces in their sleeve.
The video single, “Eos,” had already impressed me, but now that I listened to it with my full, unbridled attention, I grew to love it even more. Lyrically, the song is a vivid story narrated by the voice of a fallen soldier, whose final hope is to become one with the earth, and the music complies with this sentiment most perfectly by evolving from mellow, cinematic melancholy to fierce, blast-beat-driven black-metal punch-up that becomes more and more hymn-like toward the end of the song.
The rest of the album offers very little by way of surprise jabs, except perhaps for the surprisingly short and somewhat Gothic-tinged piano interlude, “Finisterre III,” which clocks in merely at 2 minutes. Otherwise, the remaining two songs both adhere to the band’s signature sound, crafting beautiful emotional landscapes that are guaranteed to tug at your heartstrings. The first few minutes of the closer, “Forlorn,” resonate with an almost SÓLSTAFIR-like aura, which works rather nicely with the song’s haunting synths, especially given the song’s lyrical theme: it is an intimate plea for emotional refuge.
This new DWEF album was produced, mixed, and mastered by the band’s frontman, Nikita Kamprad himself, which probably explains its magnificently solid and awe-inspiring musical vision. With repeated spins, I also noticed that there are some nice throat-singing passages in the video single, “Eos,” making this endeavor even more magnificent! Had I found this beautiful gem a little bit earlier, it would have certainly made its way to my recent blog post about the subject. For me, “Innern” is the best black-metal release of 2025 so far, and I’ll be damned if there is still time for something to push it out of the top 10 of my Best Metal Albums of 2025 list. There’s not a lot of time…
Written by Jani Lehtinen
Tracklist
- Marter
- Xibalba
- Eos
- Fragment
- Finisterre III
- Forlorn
Lineup
Nikita Kamprad – vocals, guitars
Nicolas Rausch – guitars
Alan Noruspur – bass
Tobias Schuler – drums
Label
Season of Mist
Links
https://www.facebook.com/derwegeinerfreiheit
https://www.instagram.com/derwegeinerfreiheit
