The opening track, "Rotten Hallucinations," establishes the EP's modus operandi with admirable brutality. Voices dissolve into unintelligible fragments, stretched and compressed like bodies on a medieval rack. The rhythm refuses to settle, constantly threatening to cohere before slipping back into formlessness. It recalls the queasy temporal distortions of DJ Screw's chopped-and-screwed technique, but where Screw's work possessed a narcotic languor, K6R6NZ6N's soundworld feels actively hostile, as though the music itself resents being heard.
"Dust In The Shadows" extends this discomfort through calculated repetition. Spectral voices drift through cavernous reverb while distant pulses suggest the presence of something just beyond perception. The track operates in that uncomfortable territory between ambient music and active listening—too insistent to fade into background, too sparse to demand full attention. It's unsettling precisely through its refusal to resolve, leaving the listener suspended in perpetual anticipation.
The ritualistic qualities hinted at throughout crystallise on "Sathan Trismegistus," where spoken word passages take on the character of genuine incantation. Here, K6R6NZ6N most directly channels the industrial legacy of Coil and Throbbing Gristle, though filtered through contemporary trap production's stuttering hi-hats and sub-bass frequencies. The juxtaposition feels less like pastiche than archaeological excavation, as though the producer has unearthed some cursed synthesis between occult industrial tape experiments and modern digital decay.
"Putrefacción" lives up to its title, presenting a gradual sonic decomposition that recalls the processed-to-oblivion textures of The Haxan Cloak or Raime. Layers peel away like necrotic tissue, revealing not clean structure beneath but further corruption. The repetition becomes weaponised here—not hypnotic but exhausting, grinding against the listener's patience with methodical cruelty.
Closing track "Maldición" offers no catharsis, no release from the EP's unrelenting bleakness. Instead, it lingers like a hangover, its droning tones refusing proper conclusion. The track simply *persists*, as though the ritual continues beyond the confines of the recording itself—a neat trick that leaves the listener genuinely discomfited.
The EP's greatest achievement lies in its absolute refusal of pleasure. This isn't background music for darkwave club nights or Halloween playlists. K6R6NZ6N has created something genuinely transgressive—not through shock tactics or provocation, but through sheer commitment to an aesthetic of discomfort. Every production choice—the suffocated vocals, the claustrophobic mixing, the deliberate avoidance of melodic resolution—feels calculated to unsettle.
Comparisons to the post-internet malaise captured by the late Mark Fisher feel apt. *War Against Reality* operates as sonic hauntology, populated by the ghosts of dead genres and failed futures. The witch house aesthetic, largely abandoned by 2015, returns here not as nostalgia but as genuine haunting. K6R6NZ6N treats those early 2010s Tumblr aesthetics not as ironic signifiers but as grimoire instructions, following them to their logical, uncomfortable conclusion.
Whether this constitutes enjoyable listening remains beside the point. *War Against Reality* functions more effectively as an endurance test, a sonic ordeal that challenges rather than comforts. For those willing to sit with its particular brand of darkness, the EP offers a genuinely singular experience—utterly humourless, deeply unpleasant, and strangely compelling precisely through its refusal to compromise. This is music that doesn't want your approval, and it's all the more potent for it.