How do top the largest album in your career?

“Don’t ask me”, says recording legend Anthony Anselmo. Who’s last album of mixes “No… Really” was considered his epic masterpiece. On the tailend of this great accomplish comes six years of work on his latest album “Going for the WhatNot”.

As before where Anthony would be mimicking a Phil Collins cover, this one mimics the famous Yes cover with Anthony himself providing what he calls his most ‘revealing album ever’.  The Answering Machine/Voice Mail saga that started with five comedy cd’s and morphed into now a trilogy of musical remixes Anthony says completes the story of his life for the past eight years.

“All of these songs were a work in continual progress for eight years, then finally I got tired of the space taking up on my hard drive and decided it was time to finish this.” Says Anselmo now renown for both his media achievements in both the Podcast and web art realm.

“Going for the WhatNot” is the latest in his musical mix achievement, with both music that is progressive, pop and the standard Anthony’s standard polticial song.

The CD itself starts where “No… Really” left off, with the opening of a door and the emergence of the sound coming out from the depths of probably his dark mysterious mind. The pounding bass of “Answering Machine Messiah” points directly to the core of what Anselmo is trying to accomplish. The political “Gay Marriage” follows pointing to the hypocrisy of the religious right. We are also featured to a full extended version of the songs from Anthony’s various podcasts and finally the epic 20 minutes “Awaken” bookends the whole saga nicely.

“Each song tells a story from about 2001 till now,” says Anselmo “It was a bitch to finish but we really spent extra time to make sure this one, (if the final one) would be the best.”

And produced this compliation is state of the art, as it included numerous new techniques to provide the latest and greatest sound to the listener. Anselmo has grown with his talents and both the production quality and content quality really shine here.

Where his former epics “No Case Required” and “No… Really” would sometimes stray from direction, there is defintely a coherant story being told here, and some may even consider this a ‘concept’ album harkening back to the days of old Progressive music that is rarely heard anymore.

With huge promotional plans in the works Anselmo is constantly busy producing and preparing. Working 60 hour work weeks is the normal as producing art in any form is his drive. GFTWN has already received huge critical acclaim from both fans and critics which surprised Anselmo himself.

“The last album was sort of considered the second album, and no one expects that to do well. By the time the third album comes along you really have to bring it all to the table and I’m glad that this one is being as well received as it is.”

Will this be the last of his musical mixing genius? Anselmo states that since this one was so hard to finish he would like to put this one to rest and continue with some other projects or other forms of music.

“This may be viewed as a closure to the series or a transition album. If I do do another one, that will be completely different from this. This is it… FiN (laughs)”

If this is the completion to a journey then it defintely has been a creative one…

Omlesna Ynohtna reporting for the Anselmo Press…

ALBUM TRACKS AVAILABLE HERE