Sace6 – brutalist
Release Date: 8th May 2026
The debut album from American duo sace6 is on the horizon, and the first question on many people’s lips is sure to be: how on earth do you say their name? Well, we can clear that up right away. It’s pronounced sach-ay-six (read it out loud, and you’ll get the idea).
Now that’s sorted, the second question one might ask is: what kind of music do they play? That’s a trickier one to answer. The project, born from solo artist Sace and his producer, Noah Thomas, fuses everything from noughties RnB to metal riffs, synth soundscapes and pop melodies.
The result is brutalist, a record that gives the pair a chance to cram all of their varied inspirations into 11 tracks, taking listeners from smooth, buttery vocals to ferocious, meaty, arena-filling riffs in one fell swoop.
It’s impressive, but it’s not a new concept. Sleep Token and Holding Absence, two big hitters in the UK’s alternative scene whose influences can be heard in this record, are known for showcasing a similar vocal prowess.
Following in their footsteps, sace6 flaunt pitch-perfect vocal runs and raw, emotive melodies in songs like album opener ‘besotted’ and ‘basorexia’. Both feature singing that wouldn’t be out of place in a ‘90s boy band, but against a backdrop of metal riffs that would make the NSYNC lads quake in their double denim.
It’s not just ‘90s pop and ‘00s RnB that sace6 take inspiration from. Similarities to more modern artists, like Post Malone and Juice WRLD – known for emerging from the online Soundcloud Rap era – can be heard on the album, particularly in ‘reverie’, which features a collaboration with singer-songwriter and social media star JXDN.
Despite dipping a toe into the worlds of rap, hip-hop and electronic music, the tracks on this album are all propped up by a solid backbone of rock and metal. Songs like ‘nepenthe’, with its acapella screams and violent breakdown, and ‘fabulist’, which is full-on alt-metal with no trace of pop nostalgia, cement the band’s place in the alternative scene.
There was a time when bands, and their fans, were expected to find a lane and stick to it. If you grew up an emo kid, you wouldn’t be seen dead listening to anything in the Top 40. If you called yourself a metalhead, you would scoff at the likes of My Chemical Romance and Panic! At the Disco.
But times have changed. Perhaps it’s because music is more accessible than ever, or maybe this generation is simply more open-minded. Whatever the reason, it’s exciting to see a broad range of genres inspire newer bands like sace6, who can sing like Justin Timberlake and scream like Noah Sebastian, with fans happily following them from one extreme to the other.
Indeed, brutalist doesn’t stray too far from the bands who have already made a success out of layering velvety vocals over metal-fusion. But for a debut, this record’s got legs. If sace6 can take their diverse pool of influences and channel it into a more unique sound of their own, they could reach dizzying heights in the future.