Behind The Tracks: CRYPTIC CONFINEMENT - The Infernalist (Single) (2023)

This was the second song I wrote for the album. The guitar tuning is just a half step lower than what I normally played in until recently. For this whole album, I decided to go with C# standard. It really gave the songs a more sinister vibe which is what I was going for with this album. I recorded the guitars in my home studio, the same as every other Cryptic Confinement song. The riffs came together quickly, and it's definitely one of my favorite tracks to play from this album.

By this point in the writing process, the drummer I was previously working with, Burt, had backed away from the project so I had to write the song without drums. I prefer to write guitar riffs after the drums have been recorded. I pitched the song to three different drummers, one of whom was Lycane Graven. I knew it was slightly out of his comfort zone as he mostly plays black metal and this is a more death metal-sounding track. But the way he played it was just perfect for the song. He played it better than all of them.

Once the song was finished I knew I wanted to pitch this song to the label first because it had so many elements of what I wanted to do with the rest of the album.

I named it "The Infernalist" after one of the main characters in my concept for the album's story. The character is essentially a demon-worshiping vampire who mentally tortures his victims with deceit and imposes feelings of anguish and fear upon them until they go insane. I felt like the song had a demonic vibe that fit well with this character.

And that's pretty much it. That's how a Cryptic Confinement song is written.