Eleseer

Our First Song

Well, not the first song we wrote. That was actually a long time before Smite. Rather, Smite was the first song released under the name “Eleseer”. We wrote this over a pretty brief period of time in February of 2024. Tyler gave Trystan an instrumental track that he had written over just a few days, and Trystan had the lyrics and vocal structure of the song nearly finished in another few days. While there were a few alterations made later on, the bulk of the song was written within a week’s time. Both of us found hard-hitting inspiration when writing this and got it done quicker than any other song on the record.

Smite is one of the two songs on Infinite Sky that doesn’t feature any guest performers. This song is purely Tyler instrumentally and Trystan vocally, apart from one section of vocal harmony between both – the lyrics “Broken beyond all wasted time”. All instrumental components of the song were written and recorded by Tyler, and all Lyrics and vocal parts were composed by Trystan. Though, Tyler did come up with a general structure for the phrasing of some of the screamed parts to match the instrumental . A couple of the guitar riffs in this song had actually been sitting on Tyler’s hard drive since he was fifteen years old!

Methods –

Almost all of the instrumental parts were recorded by Tyler in his bedroom between February – August 2024. Though the whole album was written out prior to mid-May of ’24, Tyler went back and re-tracked nearly every guitar and bass part, as well as making some substantial edits to the drums from the initial demo tracks we had.

Almost all recorded sounds on the album were captured either in Tyler’s bedroom, or at Studio A at SUNY Oneonta. The only exception to these locations is the keyboard sounds. While some were recorded in Tyler’s room, other sounds were replaced with a Moog Matriarch in Studio D at SUNY Oneonta.

As for vocals, everything was recorded in Studio A. Attached is a picture from February 22nd, 2024. If my memory serves me right, I believe that was the last day we spent tracking vocals for this song. I took this picture to document the absurdity of what I was wearing in the studio, as Tyler, Bella, Andrew and I had to play an aggressively corporate gig immediately after Tyler and I left the studio that night.

All scream vocals are double-tracked, except for the last phrase of lyrics (“One final claw for control…”) which are just one track. That part was actually recorded in one take, and we figured it best to just leave it as it was without adding another vocal part. The clean vocals before that section are in harmony, but it’s multiple takes of just Trystan’s voice.

Meaning –

This is probably the angriest, and darkest song on the album – both in regard to its music and lyrical content. Though I’m not a fan of giving out the exact, detailed meaning of any of my lyrics (purely because I want people to interpret them in a way that resonates with their feelings, rather than mine), I will say that the general theme of this song is “the universe having a sick sense of humor”. Don’t throw caution to the wind when it comes to your own life. Existence is strange. Whether you obsess over all its details or renounce all control, the universe can always find a way to torment you further.

Gear –

As with every song on the album, the guitars are done with NeuralDSP plugins. Tyler used his Music Man JP15 with Archetype Gojira and Archetype Nolly. The bass tones are from Bias FX, and we do not know what the bass guitar was on this song. Tyler borrowed a bass from the music store he was working at, but it wasn’t documented. Drums were programmed with GetGoodDrums. Vocals were recorded with an AKG C14 Microphone.

If you have any other questions about this song, please reach out through our Instagram @eleseer_official

Thanks for reading!