Out now on CD, LP & Digital via Klonosphere/Season Of Mist.
| RIYL : DVNE | PSYCHONAUT | Night Verses | Russian Circles| The Ocean |
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AN INSTRUMENTAL REFLECTION ON OUR PLACE WITHIN NATURE
French-Belgian cinematic instrumental progressive metal duo ØLYP have released their debut album, ‘I(m)MORTAL‘, available now via Klonosphere, with distribution by Season of Mist.
Across the album, towering riffs, intricate rhythmic movement and carefully controlled crescendos confront moments of uneasy calm. Violin, viola and cello extend that language beyond the conventional metal framework — sometimes reinforcing its scale, sometimes exposing the fragility beneath it.
Without using a single lyric, I(m)MORTAL reflects on humanity’s fractured relationship with nature, environmental collapse, collective inaction and the individualism increasingly shaping modern society. Its contrasts — intimacy and immensity, contemplation and impact, beauty and destruction — allow the music to carry those questions without prescribing how they should be understood.
The string arrangements feature violinists Pauline Henric and Zoé Sallefranque, violist Sylvain Rullier and cellist Eugénie Ursch, whose performances appear across “Solace,” “Molden” and both parts of “The Great Denial”.
BORN IN THE FJORDS. NOW OPERATING ACROSS BORDERS.
ØLYP was conceived in the Norwegian fjords and is now based between southern France and Belgium. The duo brings together Thibaud Lépicier on guitar and bass and David Annenkoff on drums.
Distance has become part of the project’s contemporary character. Norway provided the original landscape and the questions that followed; France and Belgium now form the space in which those questions become music.
Rather than replacing vocals with uninterrupted virtuosity, ØLYP uses riffs, repetition, silence, technical detail and physical weight to create its narrative. The absence of a singer leaves the album open, allowing concern, frustration and hope to coexist without being reduced to a manifesto or an easy conclusion.
The result occupies a space between the geological heaviness of The Ocean, the emotional intensity of Psychonaut, the patient instrumental architecture of Russian Circles and the restless technical movement of Night Verses.
Drums were recorded by Chiaran Verheyden, with guitars, bass and strings recorded by David Castel. Verheyden also handled mixing and mastering. Photography was created by James K. Barbosa, with artwork by Journal of Emptiness.
| Score A/V Group |
| Score A/V Office/hub : WTC Strawinskylaan, 1077 XW, Amsterdam Netherlands |
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