Praise be! Prog’s most devout figure, Neal Morse, gets the gang back together, dials back the sermonising and reaches for the stars on his band’s sparkling first album in five years.

Works by Bowie, Crumb, Brahms, Mahler, Wolf, Schubert, Clarke et al Olivia Vermeulen (mezzo), Jan Philip Schulze (piano/synthesizer), Bernd Oezsevim (percussion) Challenge Classics CC720038 67 mins Th

Andrey Gugnin (piano) Hyperion CDA684712 83 mins This album of Russian ballet transcriptions sparkles like a glass bauble hanging amidst the fairy lights. Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky wrote so colourful

The Accidental EARMUSIC

Kammerorchester Basel/Giovanni Antonini Alpha ALPHA1092 76:29 mins The most familiar of the symphonies here, if only because it has a nickname, is No. 55, whose ‘Schoolmaster’ title arises out of the

Pagan doom, Marmite metalcore, genre-smashing hardcore, razzle-dazzle arena metal… this has been the soundtrack to the decade to date