MetalPost-rock
Klonosphere/Season of Mist · 25 September 2026
Ølyp are a French duo made up of Thibaud Lépicier (guitar, bass and part of the production) and David Annenkoff (drums), and «I(m)MORTAL» is their debut full-length, out on 25 September via Klonosphere/Season of Mist. There isn’t a single sung word on the whole record: the pair have chosen to address «the fracture between humanity and nature, the accelerating ecological crisis and the rise of modern individualism» using nothing but instruments.
A guest string quartet — Pauline Henric and Zoé Sallefranque on violin, Sylvain Rullier on viola, Eugénie Ursch on cello — steps in to break up the weight of the guitars with more fragile textures, a device that pulls the record away from straightforward riff-stacking and closer to cinematic post-metal than pure progressive metal.
The map of influences the band themselves cite — The Ocean, Russian Circles, Vola, Psychonaut, Night Verses — is recognisable enough on listening that «I(m)MORTAL» sometimes sounds more like a well-made summary of that scene than a voice of its own; for a debut, there’s not much distance from the references it names.
Rating: 7.5/10