Acausal Intrusion verged on greatness with 2021’s Nulitas, touching the lip of the void but never quite accomplishing the swan dive into the darkness. Uncompromisingly complex, dissonant, and brutal through Nythroth’s unhinged axework, alongside more brutal elements like vocalist Cave Ritual’s subterranean growls and his tasteful pong snare, it was an album loaded with potential – uniquely accomplished through a strangely counterintuitive meditative quality. Follow-up Seeping Evocation, seeking to amplify its predecessor, shattered it into jagged serrations, feeling tragically improvised and unbalanced. Will Panpsychism accomplish its morbid aims?
Right off the bat, third full-length Panpsychism feels much better than Seeping Evocation, as Acausal Intrusion weaponizes a relatively new doomier palette. Its ambient intro “The Horror Above” and outro “The Beauty Within” set the tone mightily, tracks feeling much more patient while heavier than anything they’ve released so far – weightier tempos recalling more the likes of Ahab or Winter rather than Suffering Hour or Gorguts. Punctuated furthermore by rabid blackened influence as dissonant tremolo corrupts the death metal-forward passages, it features a far more even flow between passages and tracks. Ultimately, while uneven songwriting is a bullet to the foot occasionally throughout the slightly protracted forty-eight-minute runtime, Panpsychism is Acausal Return’s better experimental album and an excellent return to form.
Doom is a fresh new take in Panpsychism. While you can expect arrhythmic lurching chugs and squealing treble dissonance soaring above, Acausal Intrusion uses the low and slow to manage the sound in better and more ominous places. Tracks like “Encoded Exagrams” and “Molecular Entanglement” feel like full capitalization of this menace and tumult, a full belly of dread lurching forward with each sprawling riff. Drums feel much more organic this time around, allowing full streamlining through the doom-centric, a more bombastic and echoing approach. The duo’s songwriting is stronger, as the vicious dissonance is on full and powerful display throughout lengthier tracks like “Pillar of Rationality” and “Statical Universe,” sprawling tracks of growing crescendos while utilizing solid motifs to guide the movements. Conversely, Acausal Intrusion offers “Continuum Magnitude” and “The Inward Separation,” furious rippers whose vicious blackened blastbeats contrast mightily with downtuned slogs of swampish desolation. The production feels much more spacious in more organic flavors alongside booming percussion to allow doom influences to soar, although the contrast between the squelching density and scathing dissonance can be a detractor here.
The frustrations with Panpsychism are inherent to this breed of death metal, as its reception varies from person to person. Some might see Acausal Intrusion as an indiscernible slough of random gunk, with Cave Ritual’s subterranean growls amplifying, while others might look into the complex density and find the abyss. Similarly, while Panpsychism’s contrast between chunk and dissonance will be a highlight for some, it can sound jarringly disparate to others. Otherwise, the album has its nitpicks: the latter half feels a bit sloppier and improvised, with blackened tracks like “The Inward Separation” and “Continuum Magnitude” comprising the guilt – the former feeling particularly haphazard in its awkwardly squealing and lumbering riffs. In spite of its solid quality, “Statical Universe” feels too safe compared to the vast and ambitious crescendo of its successor “Pillar of Rationality.” All that said, Acausal Intrusion remains caught in the crossfire of conservative songwriting and wild improvisation, with greatness somewhere between – at their fingertips but just out of reach.
My expectations were somewhat low for Panpsychism, as its predecessor largely took the wind from my sails. In many ways, Acausal Intrusion’s third full-length is a return to form. While the full potential is never entirely capitalized upon, it returns to the streamlined excellence akin to Nulitas while offering a doom-centered and black-tinged palette that offers a new and exciting direction. Dissodeath’s upper echelon remains just out of reach for Acausal Intrusion, although comparisons to Ad Nauseam, Heaving Earth, and Aseitas are fair. However, you could do a whole lot worse than Panpsychism, its chunky riffs, ominous dissonance, complex songwriting, and unforgiving menace offering glimpses of the void.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 8 | Format Reviewed: 256 kbps mp3
Labels: I, Voidhanger Records
Website: facebook.com/acausalintrusion
Releases Worldwide: September 22, 2023
