Review by Dominik on October 17, 2026.

J.R.R. Tolkien in "The Fellowship of the Ring" wrote: "All we have to decide is what to do with the time given to us.". Obviously, he makes it sound considerably more heroic than most of us experience it. In real life, the "time given to us" apparently includes 38 minutes of scrolling through videos of dogs falling from sofas. Time is simultaneously the most precious thing we possess and the thing we're remarkably good at throwing away. It is also a matter of perspective. Give me three albums of thirty minutes each, and I'll happily convince myself that I have plenty of time to listen through them. Give me one album like "Tiefe Erden", which clocks in at one hour, and I'm suddenly checking the calendar, and start calculating opportunity costs. The problem with this calculation? I was measuring the costs, before discovering the value and reminding myself that music is not a business meeting, and nobody is going to ask me for a quarterly report afterwards.

"Tiefe Erden" literally means "Deep Earth". However, Wandar speak about having descended into the depths of transcendent hells and becoming one with the "ancient earths". So think what you like. I'm not entirely sure what that means either, but it certainly sounds like a place where the rent is affordable, and the neighbors are dead. Either way, this is an album that has quite a lot to offer. You'll just need time, quite a lot of it, to unravel everything it has buried beneath the surface.

Wandar have devoted themselves to melodic black metal, which relies heavily on atmosphere, as the first song after the intro immediately demonstrates. "Trug" ("Deceit") shows up with all the expected trademarks. Well-dosed and controlled blasting alternates with more reflective sections, both driven by melodic guitar lines and a frontman who manages to channel the lyrical content convincingly. Speaking of the lyrics: I have to admit that they are challenging and not exactly light reading. They're extremely dense and a bit cryptic, reflecting inner conflict through repeated contrasts of truth versus deception or knowledge versus uncertainty. Take your time to work your way through them. Preferably with a dictionary and a philosophical handbook to make the whole exercise worthwhile.

Many of the songs take their time to establish a motif and feature deliberately restrained acoustic introductions. That makes it somewhat unfortunate that the album also contains two additional interludes besides the intro, which further dilute the impact of the heavier material. Both "Nächtlich" ("Nocturnal") and "Irrlicht" ("Will-o'-the-wisp") run for more than three minutes. They are well performed, certainly, but they stretch the softer side of the album a little beyond my personal tolerance level. Which is a shame, because most of the "real" songs are melodic black metal gems, though "Drangsal" ("Affliction") suffers slightly from taking an unnecessarily long breather in the middle. Apparently, Wandar are not particularly concerned about whether their listeners have somewhere else to be.

My two absolute highlights sit right at the end of the album, both being the most direct ("Hetäre", "Hetaera") and longest song ("Gestirne", "Celestial Bodies") on the album. "Hetaera", the ancient Greek term for a cultivated female companion or courtesan, once you're through an acoustic guitar introduction, greets you with the angriest performance on "Tiefe Erden". It has an absolutely captivating underlying riff, and for once the slower sections serve as a real reprieve between the merciless onslaughts. But in true Wandar fashion, variety remains one of the priorities. I especially enjoy the middle section, where the black metal rasp battles with the still-melodic foundation of the song. Toward the end, the band changes gears again and proves that, four albums in, they have mastered the craft of making unpredictability sound deliberate and controlled at the same time. What is quite an achievement, considering that "unpredictable" is often just a polite way of saying "We had no idea where this was going either".

"Gestirne" is a twelve-minute monster and a fitting endpoint, showcasing virtually the entire repertoire of the album one last time. The constant push and pull between faster and slower sections works extremely well, and no passage feels stretched beyond its sensible limit. The fact that everything flows seamlessly into the next section is testament to the band's maturity as songwriters. What I particularly appreciate is that "Gestirne" doesn't simply "Wandar" its way to the finish line, but regains intensity and speed, with a tasteful piano ending the album. After twelve minutes of celestial bodies, ancient earths and transcendent hells, apparently the piano gets the final word. Fair enough.

"Tiefe Erden" is a perfectly produced release, which repays the time invested in it. I am glad I let it stew for a bit, as most of what the album has to offer doesn't reveal itself willingly. Much like the title suggests, you have to dig for it. And unlike those dogs falling off sofas, it actually rewards the time spent watching and listening.

Rating: 8.2 out of 10, because apparently some treasures are worth digging for, even when the excavation takes almost an hour.