Gary Lenaire - Symphonic Liberties (new album coming Jan 31st)

This should be in the regular metal side of the forum as it's not a Christian album, but for the sake of historical connections to Christian Metal and because people interested in Lenaire's stuff are probably looking this section more than the regular metal section, let's keep it here.

Gary is about to release a new solo album on January 31st.
It's called Symphonic Liberties.

It will include a remixed version of previously released Vainglorious Hypocrisy (with Luke Easter on vocals) and a bunch of new songs.
Check out the remix Gary posted a while ago:



The rhythm guitar sounds now WAY better than in the original release. That thin sound bugged me quite a bit but this one sounds completely different and much much much better.
The video itself has been updated too. There's now footage of Luke singing the song too.

And finally, here's the new promo video for the album Gary just posted:



That video has short clips of many of the tracks in the album and man it sounds GOOD!
I wonder if Gary has done a cover of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata as the video seems to open with a version of that (orchestrated, not metal).
The album also includes the song Taking Flight 1985 Gary released last year, you can hear a clip of that as well (it's the one with the other dude singing).
Also, there seems to be a song with female operatic vocals too.

Man I'm REALLY excited about this, I'm genuinely surprised by how good it sounded like. It seems it's going to be a full on metal album going between thrash and melodic heavy metal. His last solo album No Time Now was pretty experimental and had lots of different genres pumped into it and some songs had that weird thin rhythm guitar sound, but this one sounds really metal and has great punchy rhythm guitar sound.
Can't wait! It's going to be released on a physical CD too!

I can't remember if Gary has said whether Guy Ritter will be part of this album or not....

Airola wrote:I wonder if Gary has done a cover of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata as the video seems to open with a version of that (orchestrated, not metal).

Ok, got an answer to this on Youtube... Moonlight Sonata is on the album. Wow, this is getting really REALLY interesting!

I'll check it out but I'm over the symphonic thing for the most part so it that's the focus I'll pass.

I really like the metal sound Gary is doing recently..Better than recent Tourniquet...but the lyrics really bother me..Not that I necessarily disagree with them..but just the bad blood that seems to be there between former Tourniquet members... The worst part is that Luke sang those lyrics which seems very obviously targeted at Ted...Until this song there had been little or no idea that he may have left Tourniquet on bad terms but these lyrics leave little question there must have been problems....

I have not been into Tourniquet really since the last good album imo - ''Where Moth and Rust Destroy"...and the recent 2 albums are quite average imo.... Hearing Gary and Luke team up sounds more like old Tourniquet.... Though I like Guy more...but it just makes me long for the old early 90s sound again.. Still cannot beat that - Stop the Bleeding is still in my favourite albums ever.

Yeah I'm super stoked about this too! Love me some OLD Tourniquet!

This will definitely be mine.

I’ve been waiting a long time for his proper return to metal! If the rest of the album is as good as Vainglorious Hypocrisy, this will be the best thing he’s done since Pathogenic or Psychosurgery.

It’s very obvious that he was a major contributor for the early Tourniquet sound. He’s simply a great player and songwriter.

Wow, this is quite good! 

The digital album can be preordered now on iTunes:
https://music.apple.com/us/album/symphonic-liberties/1495558728
(Apparently for US customers only. I can't access it on my account)

Seems there isn't yet any way to preorder the physical CD...

Anyway, here's the track list:
1. Sonata No. 14 in C♯ Minor, Op. 27, No. 2 "Quasi Una Fantasia", (Arr. for Strings)
2. Live Free or Die
3. Cognitive
4. Bedshaped
5. Ave Maria, D. 839
6. Vainglorious Hypocrisy (2020 Remix)
7. Op. 22, "Souvenirs d'andalousie"
8. Forever in a Second
9. Taking Flight 1985
10. Sonata No. 14 in C♯ Minor Op. 27, No. 2 "Quasi Una Fantasia"

I’m still gonna wait for the physical album.

The track list reminds me of “Dimensions” era Believer. 

Any chance of a Lenaire/Bachman collaboration?

Phenomenal songs! I hate to ask, but just curious if he is still agnostic? I'll personally listen anyway.

www.garylenaire.com now has a shop where you can order stuff. Currently there is a t-shirt and an autographed CD of the upcoming album.

The CD is pretty pricey at $19.99 (it's personally autographed though and when making the order you can write the name or names you want the autograph be addressed to). I wonder if he will offer a non-autographed version later for a cheaper price.

I'm going to get the autographed version though, although shipping to Finland is a whopping $20   It's $39.99 for me for one darn CD... I'm going to wait a few days though in case the shipping costs are re-calculated or something.

It's also now for pre-order on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08411FFBB/

Both the digital and the physical versions become available on January 31th.

Don’t need the autograph... 

Will there be just a regular priced disc?

I have zero interest in former Christian thrash musicians/bands not making Christian metal anymore.

Gary, Believer, Seventh Angel, ... the whole lot of them.

Dumb on so many levels.  Aside from it potentially being a faith issue, how many SECULAR fans do you think care about these bands at all?

Better for them to stay gone IMHO.

Temple of Blood wrote:I have zero interest in former Christian thrash musicians/bands not making Christian metal anymore.

Gary, Believer, Seventh Angel, ... the whole lot of them.

Dumb on so many levels.  Aside from it potentially being a faith issue, how can SECULAR fans do you think care about these bands at all?

Better for them to stay gone IMHO.

Couldn’t agree more!

About where I'm at. Only thing with Gary is sometimes Guy shows up.

I was totally underwhelmed with the Believer reunion albums, but I did enjoy Seventh Angel’s last one and Gary’s new album sounds very promising! I’ve always liked Gary’s songwriting in Tourniquet. I don’t think this new album will be alienating to his Christian fans. He isn’t crazy like Roger Martinez. 

I hope I’m not wrong...

New song from the album.

Apparently the price of the CD has been lowered on garylenaire.com to $14.99. That's the autographed version.
Sadly the shipping cost to Finland is still $20.

However, the album is also available on cdbaby:
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/garylenaire
It doesn't have the autograph and it's a bit cheaper at $12.99.
Also the shipping cost to Finland is less than 6 dollars!
I'm sad that I can't get the autograph, but really $19 total versus $35-$40 total is a dealbreaker for me.

I'm going to look if there are some other albums on cdbaby I'd be interested to buy and make my order later.

TZ75 wrote:I was totally underwhelmed with the Believer reunion albums, but I did enjoy Seventh Angel’s last one and Gary’s new album sounds very promising! I’ve always liked Gary’s songwriting in Tourniquet. I don’t think this new album will be alienating to his Christian fans. He isn’t crazy like Roger Martinez. 

I hope I’m not wrong...

Unfortunately, I do recall GL going on about "talking snakes" during his three-piece-suited phase, back when he was peddling his book, An Infidel Manifesto.  True, he hasn't been as vociferous as RM, but that's a deal-breaker for me.   Just my $.02.

I can only imagine how many copies that book sold

Does Guy sing on any of the new songs on Gary's album?

TZ75 wrote:I was totally underwhelmed with the Believer reunion albums, but I did enjoy Seventh Angel’s last one and Gary’s new album sounds very promising! I’ve always liked Gary’s songwriting in Tourniquet. I don’t think this new album will be alienating to his Christian fans. He isn’t crazy like Roger Martinez.

I hope I’m not wrong...

Seventh Angel's latest album was very good and I really like Believer's Gabriel too. Those songs are really good live, as can be seen in this Believer live video from 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_6POmxGWak Seriously, check that out, it's an almost 40 minute set with a focus on thrash and speed, and has two songs from Gabriel, one from Transhuman, three old classics and one Sacrifice cover - it's really a fantastic show and Joey Daub is KILLING on drums!

BaleMaster wrote:
Unfortunately, I do recall GL going on about "talking snakes" during his three-piece-suited phase, back when he was peddling his book, An Infidel Manifesto.  True, he hasn't been as vociferous as RM, but that's a deal-breaker for me.   Just my $.02.

Well, he did have the Talking Snakes project going on for a while. Some of the songs from that project were included in his earlier solo album No Time Now.

Temple of Blood wrote:I can only imagine how many copies that book sold

I recall that book was at some point reviewed by some "fellow infidel" who didn't know about Tourniquet. I guess it attracted at least some people from the new atheist and agnostic groups.
I should've bought the book when it was still available. It's pretty hard to come by today and whatever copies are around are way too expensive for me (especially when the shipping cost from overseas is included).

While I would most likely disagree with whatever it had to say about religion (I only assume the contents based on the few excerpts and reviews I saw back then, and based on the questions in the synopsis that all can be answered from God-positive perspective too) I would be really interested to read what he wrote about Tourniquet and Christian music industry.

Fundy wrote:Does Guy sing on any of the new songs on Gary's album?

Apparently not. I tried to look closely on the picture of the opened digipak on Gary's website and it didn't have any mention of Guy in the song credits.

Temple of Blood wrote:I can only imagine how many copies that book sold

As much as I like Gary as a musician, I avoided that book like the plague.