Flood - Polarized (ex-tourniquet Gary Lenaire, Guy Ritter, Erik Mendez) PREVIEW VIDEO available

Dang! I thought Erik’s solos were even better than on past albums.

Maybe his heart isn’t into it, or he has other priorities in his life (hence, family responsibilities).  There’s almost no money to be made doing music. Everyone has day jobs. 

I just hope he didn’t have a falling out with Guy or Gary. 

Is anyone else thinking of Aaron Guerra? 
I’m not too sure it would work though… I think Aaron is primarily a rhythm player and they need a soloist type guy. Then again, two strong rhythm players isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. Jimmy P. Brown and George Ochoa are a good example. I have yet to hear Aaron let loose on a great shredding solo. I don’t think Ted ever required him to do it.

TZ75 wrote:Maybe his heart isn’t into it, or he has other priorities in his life (hence, family responsibilities).  There’s almost no money to be made doing music. Everyone has day jobs. 

I just hope he didn’t have a falling out with Guy or Gary. 

Is anyone else thinking of Aaron Guerra? 
I’m not too sure it would work though… I think Aaron is primarily a rhythm player and they need a soloist type guy. Then again, two strong rhythm players isn’t necessarily a bad thing either. Jimmy P. Brown and George Ochoa are a good example. I have yet to hear Aaron let loose on a great shredding solo. I don’t think Ted ever required him to do it.

Gary had several other people play solos in several songs. We don't really know how many solos were really played by Erik.
For example War in the Sky and The Four Seasons had solos by Gary Lenaire and Joao Miguel, not by Erik. This was mentioned in the official Flood facebook page.

This is all speculation of course, but not getting enough spots to do solos could be an issue to lead guitarists. Most likely though it's just about Erik not being able to commit to the future albums for one reason or another. But who knows what goes behind the scene.

Anyway, my fanboy fantasy is that Erik played the short but super emotional solo in My Last Ride. It kinda feels like an Erik solo, but who knows...

By the way, I noticed quite an interesting thing just a moment ago...
Take a look at the "about" page on the official Flood youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@floodbandofficialyoutubech8756/about

Currently it reads that Joao Miguel is the guitarist of Flood. No mention of Erik. I wonder when that was written. I'm not sure if I've looked at that text before, so I can't tell if it has been like that since the beginning. Who knows if Joao was used to play solos before Erik's involvement was confirmed, and maybe that text was never updated to include Erik. Or maybe Gary has updated that text after Erik left the band.

If Joao is now the official second guitar player of the band, it could be that Gary has already said it in the comments of his own or Flood's Facebook posts. That's where I found about Erik not being in the band anymore in the first place.

I hesitate to say this… but based on what you said, maybe Erik felt used. The fans were under the impression that three of the classic guys were working together. I wasn’t the only one that thought Erik played the flashy solos. I never heard of Joao Miguel. He wasn’t slated as a member like Erik was! 

If Erik wasn’t fully utilized as a band member, I can understand why he feels there is no reason to stay.

It’s a long shot idea… but I wouldn’t mind seeing Gary Lenaire and Greg Minier start a new project together.

TZ75 wrote:It’s a long shot idea… but I wouldn’t mind seeing Gary Lenaire and Greg Minier start a new project together.

I just want to see Greg Minier finish the second Applehead album.  It is happening!

Joao Miguel
https://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Joao_Miguel/648630

alldatndensum wrote:

TZ75 wrote:It’s a long shot idea… but I wouldn’t mind seeing Gary Lenaire and Greg Minier start a new project together.

I just want to see Greg Minier finish the second Applehead album.  It is happening!

Heck yeah! 

Can’t wait to hear it!

MagnusPrime wrote:Joao Miguel
https://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Joao_Miguel/648630

It says he’s also currently active as a member in a German band called Nephilim.

TZ75 wrote:I hesitate to say this… but based on what you said, maybe Erik felt used. The fans were under the impression that three of the classic guys were working together. I wasn’t the only one that thought Erik played the flashy solos. I never heard of Joao Miguel. He wasn’t slated as a member like Erik was! 

If Erik wasn’t fully utilized as a band member, I can understand why he feels there is no reason to stay.

But then again the album has two songs that has Erik credited as a songwriter - Darfur and In Remission. Granted, they are both old songs from their 2050 project but at least Darfur was completely rerecorded for this album and I think Erik played some of the bluesy solos for it and I think In Remission was re-recorded too, and in any case that's more songwriting credits than Erik has had in any of the albums he's previously been part of.

I have to stress again that all of this is pure speculation. What we currently know for a fact is that the album has 11 songs. Two of them has Erik credited as a writer or a co-writer. The album's liner notes say another guitarist played some solos on Stop the Bleeding and I assume Gary played the rest of that song since that's originally from his solo album even though it was re-recorded for Flood. Then from Flood's Facebook posts we know that at least two songs had Joao playing the solos with Gary. There could be more of those, but for certain we know that out of 11 songs 3 had a lead guitar player other than Gary or Erik. So it could be Erik played in 8 songs, and that's not too bad in my opinion.

Things like this happen. In Megadeth's new album James Lomenzo is credited as the official bass player of the band, but all bass guitar parts were played by Steve Di Giorgio. That's mentioned in the liner notes, but still...


....hold on....
I checked out more posts on Facebook and found out that Gary and Joao played the solos also in Design. So that's one more track Erik didn't play solos in and 3rd track Joao did solos for.
That's not to say Erik didn't play rhythm guitars though...

In another post Gary confirms he and Erik trade riffs on Darfur and they both play guitars on In Remission.

Gary has been hyping up Joao for quite some time now. In May he said Joao has been doing guest solos on the Flood album and that he played leads in Design. In that same post he says "more on Joao soon..." On May Gary also said he is already recording for the next Flood album. So it could be Joao's involvement in the next Flood album, perhaps even being an official member, has been clear since May. Even though the Polarized doesn't mention which solos were played by Joao and which by Erik, Gary hasn't been hiding Joao's involvement at all in both Flood and his own artist Facebook page. So I don't think there's anything shady going on.

It's what it is, and at the very least if you loved the solos on Design, War in the Sky and The Four Seasons you are going to get more of that in the next album. I can't wait to hear what's coming next. Glad to see the new album is coming so quickly. Stop the Bleeding, Psycho Surgery and Pathogenic were all also released yearly. Seems like Gary and Guy have found that special spark again that's feeding their creative hunger.

I hope they get a different drum sound for the next Flood.

Bahana wrote:I hope they get a different drum sound for the next Flood.

I agree! 

A more analog/natural tone would be better! Something like the drums on Psycho Surgery or Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance. 

Although Pathogenic may have had some triggers used, it was done tastefully!

The drums really bring the sound of the album down, unfortunately.

Pethead wrote:The drums really bring the sound of the album down, unfortunately.

I’ve done my best to overlook it, but yeah… you’re right. Especially the snare sound! The kick drums are fine.

Any new updates? It’s been a while.

Last update (mentioned on 3rd March on Facebook) said the second album is out this year.  Nothing more as yet.

It's coming next winter.

I was sure Gary had posted that info somewhere before and I was about to write about it here, but I couldn't find that post anymore so I deleted the post. I wondered if I had just dreamed about it or something.

But I was right!

Gary posted on his own facebook page that "FLOOD is planning to release its 2nd record this winter"
It could be December 2023 or Jan/Feb of 2024. Someone asked about that and Gary just replied "good question, stay tuned!"

Either way it will be released early next year at the latest.

Can't wait!!

I hope he releases a sample or snippet to give us an idea of what it will sound like.

This is a minor complaint… but I really think they need to get a better album cover artist on the next one. I miss the days of the hand drawn and painted illustrations. I love the look of the Psycho Surgery painting, with all the little details. 

The Seventh Angel album covers from Rodney Matthews are by far the best. Then I would say Ed Repka (famous for the art on Peace Sells and Rust in Peace by Megadeth). 

Bring back good cover art! It was such a great part of the album experience when I was younger. I still love it!

TZ75 wrote:This is a minor complaint… but I really think they need to get a better album cover artist on the next one. I miss the days of the hand drawn and painted illustrations. I love the look of the Psycho Surgery painting, with all the little details. 

The Seventh Angel album covers from Rodney Matthews are by far the best. Then I would say Ed Repka (famous for the art on Peace Sells and Rust in Peace by Megadeth). 

Bring back good cover art! It was such a great part of the album experience when I was younger. I still love it!

With more and more independent releases, you're probably aren't going to see those days. It costs money. What you will probably start seeing more of is AI artwork.

deathisgain wrote:

TZ75 wrote:This is a minor complaint… but I really think they need to get a better album cover artist on the next one. I miss the days of the hand drawn and painted illustrations. I love the look of the Psycho Surgery painting, with all the little details. 

The Seventh Angel album covers from Rodney Matthews are by far the best. Then I would say Ed Repka (famous for the art on Peace Sells and Rust in Peace by Megadeth). 

Bring back good cover art! It was such a great part of the album experience when I was younger. I still love it!

With more and more independent releases, you're probably aren't going to see those days. It costs money. What you will probably start seeing more of is AI artwork.

Sad but true… 

I would definitely chip into a crowdfunding to pay for the artwork. Independent releases usually only get a few thousand copies printed. Real limited quantities.

Is “Rexorcist” retired? He used a computer to create his art, but it was good. I know Scott Waters does a lot nowadays. But nothing beats the hand drawn illustrations!

I agree, hand drawn stuff is always the best, and Rodney Matthews ones are right at the top of the pile.  Stairway have been using his stuff for their last two, so it must still be feasible.

Fundy wrote:I agree, hand drawn stuff is always the best, and Rodney Matthews ones are right at the top of the pile.  Stairway have been using his stuff for their last two, so it must still be feasible.

There has to be a lot of people with amazing talent that haven’t been discovered yet. A unknown artist trying to make a name for themselves will work for nothing compared to an established person. The problem is finding them. There must be some sort of network they communicate with.

Deviant Art?
https://www.deviantart.com/