Album Review: brutalist - sace6
sace6 - “brutalist” album cover
sace6 have exploded into the alternative music scene, bringing enigmatic blends of R&B, pop, and metal into a space that can sometimes be considered a safe zone for musicians daring to test the limits of creativity. Their 2025 EP, “Limerence” gave us a sneak into what the band are capable when given freedom to express themselves without containment, and “brutalist” is a statement that defies genre norms and can be inspiration to other artists wanting to put their foot down when it comes to ignoring external influences and pressures to follow the trends.
Opening the record with piano is besotted, which delicately eases listeners into the journey, setting the tone for themes about love, relationships, jealousy, and intimacy. sace’s vocals gracefully lead the way, glossing over the ambient instrumentals before diverting to become almost a dance track with a pick up of tempo. Each section is short-lived, dropping you off in a different vibe before you’ve had a chance to settle with the previous. Then the identifiable distorted guitars come in; loud, frustrated, and compelling. This is a pertinent opening track, displaying every creative side of sace6, and proving that they’re passionate and educated in their craft.
ego still remains to have the catchiest chorus on this album. Once that first line comes in you better be prepared to try and keep up with sace’s angelic vocal runs that Christina Aguilera would be jealous of, because he has such a faultless voice that leaves you with a mix of overwhelming feelings such as awestruck, bewilderment, and disbelief. A voice that you would still feel immensely affected by in every fibre of your being, even if it was isolated. The use of distorted guitars to surround the chorus intensifies the feeling of discomfiture from the lyrics, and stripping it back to a trap-style beat behind the verses allows for complete unwavering attention to truly listen to the story being told. sace6 are experts at knowing when to fully send it but also when to drop back, and they have to be, otherwise they wouldn’t be as successful when blending so many genres together.
Vocally, there’s a track to accompany every emotion, beautifully portrayed by both sace, and Noah Thomas, who have stepped up their game exponentially. Sometimes a track benefits from the blend of both heaven-sent vocals and visceral harshes, and sace6 have meticulously identified where having both vocalists on a track would upgrade it, such as in allured, ego, uneven, nepenthe, fabulist, and perfidy.
If this record contained a mix on every track, it would very quickly diminish the effectiveness, so when transparency and vulnerability need to be acknowledged, there’s an absence of harsh vocals to allow sace to convey emotion with his exceptional vocals, hitting highs that seem impossible, and retaining a tone so impressive that you’re constantly questioning how a human can produce such effortlessly stunning sounds. He takes the reins on delivery where it’s needed most, highlighted on, besotted, covet, dolorous, reverie ft jxdn, and basorexia.
Throughout “brutalist”, the strikingly impressive drumming of Seung Won Li (known on socials as Tyler Saxz), can be buried in the mix underneath the enormous distorted guitars, synth work, and dynamic vocals, and while this would be usually be considered negative, with how much power and deliberacy is put into each track, it would be a tough listen if they were easier to hear because it would create an overwhelming amount of noise. When the instruments are stripped back, the snare, double kicks, and cymbals can be heard, and that’s when they can be truly appreciated for how well they’re played.
To have perfidy as your album closer was either a very well executed creative decision, or a shockingly impressive fluke, as throughout all 11 tracks, there isn’t one better suited to bring “brutalist” to a close. From start to finish, this track bulldozes through every human emotion that has been audibly represented throughout the record in 4 minutes and 49 seconds. Featuring sections that are full to the brim with raw, visceral aggression, and others that are brutally honest and otherworldly. When they all come together to exist alongside each other, you’d expect whiplash from the ever changing tone and strict contrast between the two, but it flows with such elegance and purpose in order to tell a definitive story of how human emotion is not linear, it’s a fluctuating mechanism that cannot always be controlled, and listeners will feel whatever sace6 want them to feel at any given moment.
Duality is at the forefront of this album, where delicacy meets distortion, vulnerability meets power, and melancholy meets aggression, which makes it a soundtrack that can be played anywhere, whether that be blasting through your car speakers with the windows down, in stadiums ricocheting off the walls, or in the darkness of your room with just your thoughts to accompany you. The distortion of the guitars add a substantial weight to every track that leaves you feeling heavy from the inside, not because they’re “heavy for the sake of being heavy” but because the use of distortion thoroughly portrays how emotions can feel fuzzy at times.
Take this for what it is, rather than trying to box it into a single genre that it doesn’t solely identify with unless your goal is to disappoint yourself. That’s a problem a lot of listeners create in the modern age of music, and thus causes a lot of unnecessary discourse and arbitrary expectations. “Brutalist” is an R&B album first, and a metal album second, both genres forced to coexist and intertwine to produce a beacon of light in what can sometimes be a stagnant era of alternative music.
It disintegrates boundaries and plants itself firmly as an exquisite example of what happens when you fearlessly put every inch of your soul into your art, ignoring trends, gimmicks, and cash-grab tactics to deliver what you want to create. “brutalist” is a crowning achievement that spotlights sace6 as a compelling band within the modern music scene. They’re storytellers, and they’re magicians within their craft, bringing together elements that would otherwise seem conflicting and turning them into a cohesive masterpiece.
FFO: Imagine Heavensgate meets 6LACK
Score: 9/10
“brutalist” by sace6 is out on all streaming platforms at midnight on Friday 8th May 2026 via Sumerian Records.
