Little by Little, Some Details Are Being Revealed... | Tourniquet’s New Album Is Coming
Gary Lenaire, Tourniquet’s longtime guitarist, has been slowly revealing a few details about the band’s new album, which will feature some of its original members, except for Ted Kirkpatrick, who, as many of you know, passed away a few years ago.
The band has reunited with Lenaire on guitars, the voices of the band’s former vocalists, Guy Ritter and Luke Easter, plus some musicians such as Anna Sentina on bass and David Schwarz (drummer for Extol) on drums, who have joined this new version of Tourniquet. With this lineup, they performed live at the “Light The Dark” festival in March 2025 in Sweden, and also previously at the “Immortal Fest” in 2024. In these performances, this new version of Tourniquet has been responsible for revisiting a lot of old material from their early albums, perhaps the best period in their long history. The setlist was marked by several of the band’s classics, generally from their first three albums.
In an interview, Gary Lenaire revealed that the producer of this new album is none other than the famous Bill Metoyer, who was already in charge of albums such as “Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance” and “Psycho Surgery,” which gives us a small hint of where things might be headed. The guitarist confirmed that the new material follows the sound of “Pathogenic,” which is an extra reason to stay tuned.
It’s no surprise that both albums are almost legendary, and have even marked the particular style of Tourniquet, a band that is difficult to categorize, but is generally included within the Speed/Thrash Metal genre. Even so, we must not forget that Tourniquet has cultivated the art of versatility, so we’ll definitely see what this new production brings us.
Another interesting piece of news is that Bubby Lewis, bassist for Snoop Dogg and Suicidal Tendencies, will be a guest on this new album, as will Joao Miguel, guitarist for Flood (the project between Lenaire himself and Guy Ritter), which opens up the possibility of other guests? Who knows. So far, information has been coming in dribs and drabs, as have details of what this new album will be like.
Among some reflections made by the band’s guitarist on his social media accounts, he recalled that “We’re deep into the new record stage. As we write and record, I’m reminded of some amazingly important aspects of this band. Some things that made us what we were…and what we are. In the early days (the first three records), Ted and I had a pact regarding songs and songwriting. We agreed that we would not allow a song to get on a Tourniquet record if it could not stand on its own as an instrumental. Once the music was strong enough on its own, we would complete the vocal structures. We pushed ourselves and each other. If you go back and listen to those records, even if they are not your favorites, we believe we achieved that goal and pact.”
According to what Gary Lenaire confirmed in the aforementioned article, Tourniquet plans to finish recording the new album, release it, and only then return to performing live. In his own words, “We are currently focusing on our new album and plan to do more concerts in 2026, after the album is released.” He also expressed his intention for the band to finally be able to play here in Argentina.
All we can do is wait while Tourniquet prepares what will be their new album. To calm your anxiety, here is a video of one of their latest shows in its entirety that someone captured, which, in reality, rather than calming our anxiety, makes us even more eager…
