“Panpsychism” is the third full-length album from the U.S.-based technical death metal band, ACAUSAL INTRUSION. It will be released on September 22nd, 2023 on I, Voidhanger Records. ACAUSAL INTRUSION plays an impenetrable and experimental form of technical death metal. This album is forty-nine minutes of dense and complex material.

The intro track, “The Horror Above” consists of ambient outdoor sounds mixed with echoing vocals, ghastly chatter, and eerie keyboards. The following track, “Encoded Hexagrams,” does an excellent job of setting the stage for the rest of the album. The lead vocals consist of low growls and the instrumentation is complex, with riffs that never stay in one place for long. Every musical idea is thoroughly explored and taken to the extreme.

“Pillar Of Rationality” starts with clean guitar chords and the song takes shape organically, morphing into a marching doom metal riff. This builds a false sense of security right before letting loose a technical death metal onslaught. The marching doom riff is revisited several times in between bursts of intensity, changing subtly each time. I thought that the ten-minute plus length was a bit much, given the obtuse song structure. There’s so much packed into every second that it becomes fatiguing after a while.

“Molecular Entanglement” begins with a folksy guitar lick and progresses quickly until playing feedback and unleashing the fury. This nearly nine-minute track is also exhausting by its end. I love the guitar layering and overall boldness of this track. The laughter and different iterations of repeating triplets were also high points.

After about forty-five minutes of some of the most demanding metal, the album ends with “The Beauty Within.” This unsettling instrumental track has a slowly degrading piano melody mixed with acoustic guitar and environmental sounds. The track gets creepier and more upsetting the more it progresses. It’s a great way to end an album that’s sure to keep most listeners off guard.

While I enjoyed listening to “Panpsychism,” I felt like it would have worked better as possibly a pair of EPs or a thirty-minute album. It’s easier to appreciate than it is to endure. The chops that these two musicians have are undeniable and they succeeded in making one of the most challenging albums of the year.