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.

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 sax may be back, but Shabaka’s third solo LP is light years from jazz. By Danny Eccleston.

The Accidental EARMUSIC

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

Chicago Theatre, January 9