REVIEW: sace6 - brutalist
- Zuzanna Pazola
- 18 hours ago
- 4 min read
There’s a fine line between contrast and contradiction, and on brutalist, SACE6 lean fully into the latter. Their whole approach hinges on a simple question: how heavy can something get while still feeling undeniably pop? It’s not about blending genres neatly together, but forcing them to coexist, and more often than not that tension is exactly what makes this debut hit as hard as it does. After making serious waves with 2025’s Limerance, the duo wasted no time in levelling up. Not even a year later, brutalist arrives as both a continuation and a clear evolution: building on that same haunting, emotionally driven foundation, but pushing it further in both scale and confidence. There’s a strong sense of identity here, not just in how it sounds, but in how deliberately it’s been shaped.
Opener besotted sets the tone immediately. It starts with a kind of understated beauty before distortion creeps in, eventually giving way to heavier instrumentation without ever losing its sense of control. It’s a smart introduction, enough to establish the band’s duality without showing their full hand too early. That push-and-pull becomes a defining feature of the record, whether it’s the shimmering R&B textures or the sudden, almost jarring bursts of weight that follow.
That contrast feels especially natural once you understand how the band actually writes. Sometimes Noah builds out full instrumentals for Sace to work over, other times it starts with a vocal idea that the production grows around. Either way, the process never feels rigid, and that lack of structure carries through into the music itself. There’s no sense of chasing trends of ticking genre boxes. It’s more instinctive than that, pulling from whatever influences happen to stick at the time. You can hear flashes of everything from atmospheric pop to heavier alt influences, all sitting side by side without feeling forced.
A good example of that balance done right is reverie, featuring JXDN. The collaboration makes sense without feeling like a gimmick, with the contrast between vocal tones adding real depth to the track, especially in the closing moments where the harmonies really flourish. It’s one of the more immediately accessible tracks, without delving too far into the heavier or more distorted side of SACE6’s sound, but it still holds onto the emotional weight that runs through the rest of the album.
Later in the album, ego is the clearest turning point. Already sitting on huge streaming numbers ahead of the album’s release, it’s easy to hear why. The track opens with a burst of intensity before dropping into something far more restrained, only to explode again when it matters. It’s dynamic without feeling messy, and it captures exactly what the band seem to have been aiming for all along: a graduated version of their earlier sound where everything finally clicks into place.
SACE6 then deliberately strip things back on dolorous. It’s arguably the softest moment on the record, but it never drifts into filler territory. Instead, it lingers, understated, melodic, and quietly affecting in a way that sticks with you long after it ends. That calm doesn’t last long, though, with nepenthe immediately flipping the switch again. It opens with heavier vocals before settling into a brighter, almost deceptively light rhythm. It’s one of the clearest examples of the band’s core idea in action, showing softness and intensity not competing, but colliding.
By the time perfidy closes things out, everything feels fully realised. Stretching close to five minutes, it pulls together every thread the album’s been building - clean vocals, heavier passages, textured production, and that constant pop undercurrent tying it all together. It doesn’t feel like an ending so much as a full-circle moment, the kind that leaves you satisfied but already considering another listen.
Across the record, there’s a hypnotic quality to the R&B elements, something warm and almost cinematic that pulls you in before the heavier moments hit. It’s the kind of album that feels built for long summer evenings, but there’s always something slightly darker sitting underneath. That sense of atmosphere isn’t accidental either - the band have spoken about drawing inspiration from everything from 90s romance films to narrative-driven games like Life Is Strange, and you can absolutely hear that focus on mood and storytelling in how these tracks unfold.
Lyrically, brutalist stays consistently strong. There’s a mix of vulnerability, confrontation, and reflection that feels genuine rather than overworked. Knowing that a lot of the material comes from personal experiences, it never feels closed-off. There’s enough space for listeners to project their own meaning onto it, which makes the whole thing hit just that little bit harder.
For a debut, this album is impressively self-assured. It’s not flawless - the constant shifts can feel disorienting on a first run, and it’s definitely an album that benefits from being heard front-to-back rather than in isolation - but that unpredictability is also where a lot of its appeal lies. The songs don’t always go where you expect, and that’s very much the point. SACE6 aren’t interested in playing it safe, and brutalist makes that clear from the very start. If this is what they can pull off this early on, it’s hard not to see why there’s already so much momentum behind them.
Score: 8/10
brutalist will be released on 8th May 2026 via Sumerian Records.
Words: Zuzanna Pazola
Photos: Sad Swim
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