There are some very strange projects, and CtrlAltSuppr is one of them.
The band emerged in 2020, but didn’t materialize until 2024, when Renaud Fauconnier (guitar/vocals), Vincent Liard (bass), Jesse Haddad (drums) and Rodolphe (additional mewing) gave life to CtrlAltSuppr, their first production.
Openly self-described as an Antifascist Black Metal band, what first intrigues me is the order of the tracks: there are five of them, three compositions numbered from III to I, then an outro and an intro. This relatively original deconstructed choice is first illustrated by the melancholic III – A.D.I.D.A.S (All Day I Dream About Su!c!de), where haunting vocal parts meet a soaring rhythm, but also more visceral howls. The sound sometimes becomes heavier or more complex, before a vocal sample of a speech by philosopher Gilles Deleuze on the subject of art, followed by a few ethereal harmonics before joining II – Boundaries Do Share The Meme, where dissonance reigns supreme. Clean vocals and female backing ones dances with the lead before exploding into madness, then subsiding to let a new sample take over before the final conflagration, driving to I – L’Autocensure Fait Le Lit De La Névrose, and its almost melodic touches. Raw Black Metal is obviously present within the surge, especially through the aggressive ordered blast, but the band obviously takes advantage of its unpredictable Jazz roots to lead us to Outro – Erreur 404, which exploits them to the full. The vocals remain rather enigmatic, particularly during the murmurs, and then it’s with Intro – AltF4 that the record comes to an end, offering a disquieting yet strangely soothing sound, which is anchored mainly in sonorities rather than violence.
CtrlAltSuppr offers multiple influences, both complex and precise, musical and otherwise. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve fully grasped the message of Ctrl Alt Suppr, but I recognize its originality and technicality!
70/100