Anthony Garone - 2026 - OK, But Why?

(55:23; Moonjune Records)






















When one looks at the cover one comes away with certain concepts, such as we are looking at different facets of an artist with a fractured point of view stitching together ideas from different areas, yet always with a strong grip on his guitar, and in many ways that is exactly what we hear when we play the album. My first views were Steve Vai and Robert Fripp joined together in battle, with the referee being Frank Zappa, and having listened to this album a lot (by my standards) I still hold true to those beliefs, although musically it is even more fractured and far-reaching than that. Yes, there are undoubtedly some elements which are more Crimson than others, but instead of covering a “straightforward” Crimson track, Garone instead gives us his versions of Fripp’s “Erudite Eyes”, which can originally be found on the 1968 pre-King Crimson album, ‘The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles, and Fripp’, an album Garone grew up listening to. As with many of the songs recorded on this release, his first full album since 2007, this piece was originally worked on some time ago with Garone releasing a version on YouTube in 2011, but he revisited it for this album.

There are fluid line-ups on this dynamic and exciting album, with more than 20 guest musicians, including the likes of Morgan Ågren, Michael Manring, Andy West, Jan Zehrfeld, and two of the songs are just Garone with drummer Owen Dueck. Most of the songs are instrumentals, but there are also some with vocals (all on the second half) which totally changes the feeling of what we are being presented with, and I felt even more that Garone is somewhat fractured in his approach as he appears to excel at whatever he wishes to, even with songs such as “My Garden” which could be coming to us straight from the power pop era. There is a quote in the press release from none other than Steve Vai which is worth repeating, “Anthony Garone has made an unapologetic, dense, alien melodic, rhythmic brain twisting, sublimely lovely solo record… I’m sure glad I don’t have to play it.” That probably says more than any words I can put together, so all I will say is that I thoroughly enjoyed it the first time I played it and it is has only improved repeatedly over time. 

Kev Rowland, August 2026

Links:
https://garone.org/
https://moonjune.com/

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