A Prog Rock Christmas, various artists (Purple Pyramid)

As long as there are progressive rock artists still active out there in the world, there will be new albums of prog rock music. Yes, that's true of literally every non-hipster-oriented genre of music, but prog especially is a genre that folks dismissed utterly in the wake of the 70s punk revolution despite the fact that the active fanbase for this music never really went away. (As someone who has been thinning out his vinyl collection by going to record shows, I find that these events tend to attract prog fans as much as those for any other genre of music.) So here we are in 2019 with this collection of prog rock Christmas music for your delectation. One caveat: Detailed information about this release is at a premium, so I can't swear that all of these performances are new to this collection, but since I don't immediately recognize any of them, I'm going to act as if they are fresh performances. Jon Davison opens with a cover of Chris Squire's "Run With the Fox," Kasim Sulton offers the ballad "Christmas Lights," Steve Morse does an ensemble guitar arrangement of "Carol of the Bells," Annie Haslam performs "12 Days of Christmas," Billy Sherwood and Patrick Moraz do Sir Paul's "Wonderful Christmastime," and Martin Turner's performance of ELP's "I Believe in Father Christmas" works as a tribute to the late Greg Lake. Leslie Hunt & Robin McAuley offer their version of "Fairytale of New York," Sonja Kristina does a suitably churchy version of "O Come All Ye Faithful," Focus's Thijs Van Leer breaks out his flute on "A Christmas Song," Geoff Downes changes very little about "Linus & Lucy," Nik Turner and Simon House take instrumental liberties with "Silent Night," Malcolm McDowell (yes, the actor) does a dramatic reading of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," and the late John Wetton tops off the proceedings with his version of John & Yoko's "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)." While the selection of artists is catnip for prog fans, I would point out that nearly all these performances would appeal to fans of conventional pop rock of the 70s and 80s, as there are no selections over six minutes long and there are almost no exhibitions of instrumental prowess at the expense of melody and rhythm. Check it for yourself.