As the year comes to a close, many of us who do reviews are typically done with what the closing year has to offer with many calling it before the end of November, but there is always something to find and excellence to uncover even well after the new year has begun. The underground is a dense beast that has so much to discover. One must simply persist and continue to excavate even if it means doing so alone, and such efforts can lead to discoveries that go to show that even in the final moments of a year there’s still splendor to be had. With their debut EP, Winds of Winter embodies that fact magnificently.

When combing through the underground, it needs to be understood that it’s practically mandatory to come before many acts that you will find uninteresting, uninspired, or outright bad in your opinion before you come before even a single work that catches your eye for one reason or another. In spite of that, it wasn’t long in scouring the logs of Bandcamp that Winds of Winter was brought before me, and amongst a lot of half-assed death metal and boring black metal, it’s with everything brought to the table with “Dark Chameleon Dimers” that this duo puts forth a hell of a performance for its debut creation. Intensely melodic alongside a clear understanding of death-tinged black metal with more than a few anti-fascist notions in the final track, this is the kind of find one can only beg for in the underground. Already does Winds of Winter display a tremendous understanding of their craft to deadly effect as the rhythmic factor greatly enhances the madness that’s at a constant high to ensure that this isn’t a debut that can be skipped over but, rather, one that should be noted by any purveyor of the underground who takes themselves seriously. Ripe for expansion and downright fascinating to behold, “Dark Chameleon Dimers” sets the stage for Winds of Winter to lay for a cold onslaught that’s simply undeniable.

A dark experience that takes into consideration much of what has always made this sound something to respect any time it’s done well, Winds of Winter are really onto something with this effort. Across only five tracks, “Dark Chameleon Dimers” manages to stand out from the competition to make itself a clear contender for what might very well be the last solid stop for this particular sound in 2024.

LISTEN to “Dark Chameleon Dimers” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Winds of Winter on Facebook here.