> it seems it provides sequential consistency when using atomics and acquire/release semantics when not.

(author of the said paper here) This is wrong. I suggest reading the paper closely. If not, the morning paper has a good summary [1,2].

[1] https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/08/09/bounding-data-races-in-s...

[2] https://blog.acolyer.org/2018/08/10/bounding-data-races-in-s...

I would have preferred a straightforward answer instead.

It's not obvious to me from those articles how what I said is inaccurate.