Released on March 5 under the alias Dark at Three, the project intentionally defies genres: its fusion of rock, metal, trap and ambient sounds seeks to capture the roller-coaster ups and downs of living with mental-health challenges, ending on a hopeful note that parallels Halbroth’s own journey.

Born in Australia, Halbroth and his family moved to Hong Kong when he was three months old. He picked up his first guitar at the age of nine, finally got his own at 12, and was on stage by 13.

Practising the instrument in his room for hours on end – the first difficult song he nailed was Metallica’s Master of Puppets – helped him escape the mental-health challenges that stretched back to his childhood, such as facial tics and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

“The way I would deal with everything was I would sit down and play guitar,” says Halbroth. “I would learn these songs because I wasn’t doing anything else – that was the thing that could really take my mind off of it.”

Having run into deeper personal struggles when he moved to Berlin, Germany, to study music production in 2019, Halbroth chose to make mental health the focus of his debut EP.

“It has been a really tough two years for me,” he says. “I needed to do something that could bring positive change, so that hopefully the next person who opens up about mental health doesn’t get ignored or pushed away.”

Each of Against the Dying Light’s six tracks embodies a different feeling, struggle or disorder.

The intro’s downward, tumbling chord progression – representing the beginning of the listener’s journey into the “dying light” of mental illness – is followed by Inure, which seeks to break the misconception that OCD is simply a fixation on tidiness and order.

“The best definition I’ve seen of the experience of OCD is like having the antagonist of your life living in your head, second-guessing every decision you are making,” says Halbroth.

It was the overlooked contradictions of OCD – between that gnawing, doubtful inner voice and the happy face those with the disorder put on for the world – that Halbroth worked to infuse in the battle between the track’s guitar, strings and keyboard sections.

Both aggressive and tranquil tracks follow, leading up to Heathen, which Halbroth calls the EP’s “acceptance anthem”.

“You are breaking through that cycle, accepting that, ‘Yeah, I might not be completely OK, but I will get through this, I will find the energy,’” he says.

The closing track builds on this chorus of hope, reversing the downward, tumbling intro to leave listeners with a sense of optimism, that they, too, can emerge from the “dying light”.

A quarter of the 19-minute project’s streaming revenue will be donated to Mind Hong Kong.

“I want to raise awareness with this project, but I also want to give back,” says Halbroth. “Especially because in Hong Kong, mental health is so stigmatised that it’s an uphill battle. I hope this is something I can do to make that hill a little less steep.”

Against the Dying Light is available to stream now on Spotify, Apple Music and SoundCloud.