EP REVIEW: Into The Maze – Aglo

One man band AGLO is the latest in a long line of doom dealers driving for dominion. Rising up from Down Under with his second EP, Aaron Osborne slams, chugs and growls his way into your psyche and demonstrates the infectious power that brutal doom can have over your neck muscles.

Right from the opening bars of Into The Maze’s title track, it’s clear that this is an EP that deals in chunk. With a guitar tone thicker than oatmeal, the real kicker is when Osborne adds his vocals into the mix: wrenched from the deepest bowels of some hellacious nightmare, it makes for a potent brand of death-doom that delivers the heaviest aspect of each part. 

Parasites dives deeper still into the guts of the genre, offering up hazy riffs laced with malicious drums and murderous vocals. Although the sample preceding the final breakdown hams it up a step too far, there is a grand sense of malevolence lingering about this. 

The back half of Into The Maze comprises three tracks that were released last March on AGLO’s debut EP Collector, and while they’ve not been given a fresh lick of paint for their inclusion here, it does expand on the gloomy world that Osborne has created. The likes of Collector and Past show that he has found his sound as AGLO and that he’s firmly sticking with it. 

While there may not be a great deal of variation throughout these six tracks, The Journey Home does still feel like a perfectly logical and suitable closer as the most expansive, drawn out track and the one that takes you on the biggest journey. Glacial in its pace throughout, the tone just seems to get heavier and darker until it’s practically a blanket of oppressive aural terror.

AGLO is building toward something special. What that is and when it comes remains to be seen, but Into The Maze showcases one man’s terrifying bloodlust and insistence on pummelling listeners into submission with low, slow slabs of doom. And here it feels as if you‘ll really have no choice in the matter.

Rating: 7/10

Into The Maze is out February 16 via Gutter Prince Cabal.

Follow AGLO on Bandcamp.