There’s something cold about brutalist, but not in a detached way. More like fluorescent lights at 2AM, overthinking every conversation you’ve had in the last six months while your phone glows beside you. On their newest project, sace6 leans fully into obsession, hesitation, emotional dependency, and the kind of intimacy that turns corrosive if you sit with it too long.

The album moves like one long anxious thought. Songs bleed into each other emotionally, every track feeling connected by tension, fixation, and vulnerability. There’s a constant push and pull throughout the record, wanting somebody close while simultaneously knowing they’re probably destroying you.

“basorexia” stands out almost immediately. It’s one of the most suffocating tracks on the album in the best way possible, built around fixation and physical longing that borders on panic. The writing feels claustrophobic, repetitive in a deliberate way, like thoughts looping in someone’s head faster than they can process them. It’s messy, emotional, and brutally honest.

Then there’s “reverie,” which ends up being one of the strongest moments on the record. Jxdn adds a surprisingly natural balance to the track, his vocals sliding into the atmosphere of the song effortlessly. The chemistry between sace and jxdn works because neither artist overpowers the other. Instead, they let the song drift into this hazy, emotionally conflicted space where everything feels half-real and half-memory. It’s easily one of the album’s most replayable moments.

Tracks like “ego,” “allured,” and “covet” continue building on the project’s emotional core. The writing throughout brutalist feels conversational and unfiltered, almost intrusive at times, like reading somebody’s notes app after a breakup they still haven’t recovered from. Even when the production gets darker or more experimental, the focus always comes back to emotion first.

What makes brutalist work is that it never tries too hard to appear polished. The album thrives in its imperfections. It’s anxious, impulsive, vulnerable, sometimes toxic, and painfully self-aware. That rawness is exactly what gives it weight.

For fans of darker alternative music that prioritizes atmosphere and emotional honesty over perfection, brutalist is worth sitting with front to back.

Signed, Runaway Reverie