No big hoo-hah this year: just a down and dirty list of my favorite releases and reissues of the year, covered in previous Quick Takes or elsewhere on the Web (links are to my original articles)!

New Releases

• Anchor & Burden, Extinction Level
• Jon Anderson & The Band Geeks, True
• Big Big Train, The Likes of Us. Click here for a review of BBT’s debut North American concert!
• Big Big Train, A Flare on the Lens (live recording)
• Black Country Communion, V
• The Decemberists, As It Ever Was, So Will It Be Again
• The Elora Singers, In Beauty May I Walk
• Sierra Ferrell, Trail of Flowers
• David Gilmour, Luck and Strange
• Steve Hackett, The Circus and the Nightwhale. Click here for a live review!
• Nick Lowe (powered by Los Straitjackets), Indoor Safari
• Neal Morse, The Restoration (Joseph, Part Two)
• Joanne Shaw Taylor, Heavy Soul
• Benedict Sheehan, Akathist – this year’s Co-Top Favorite!
• Wayne Shorter, Celebration, Volume 1 (live archive recording) – this year’s Co-Top Favorite!
• Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphonies 4, 5 & 6 (Oslo Philharmonic, conducted by Klaus Mäkelä)
• Billy Strings, Live Vol. 1
• Kamasi Washington, Fearless Movement

Reissues

• Benjamin Britten, War Requiem (with vocal soloists, choruses & the London Symphony Orchestra) – a 2023 high-definition reissue of an Album That Changed My Life!
• King Crimson, Red (50th anniversary reissue). More to say about this one coming soon!
• Marillion, This Strange Engine (Deluxe Edition)
• Porcupine Tree, Fear of a Blank Planet (Deluxe Edition)
• The Police, Synchronicity (Super Deluxe Edition) – my Top Favorite reissue of the year!
• Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense (BluRay video and BluRay audio/CD editions)
• Richard Wagner, The Golden Ring: Great Scenes from Der Ring des Nibelung (vocal soloists and the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by Georg Solti) – a 2022 compilation of excerpts from one of the recording industry’s greatest achievements, reissued in high-definition sound.

(Re)Discoveries

• Sierra Ferrell, Long Time Coming. Click here for a live review!
• Bruce Hornsby, The Way It Is; Scenes from the Southside; Harbor Lights; Here Come the Noisemakers (live); Intersections 1985-2005 (box set); Solo Concerts (live). See my appreciation of Bruce’s career here!

Thanks for your ongoing attention and steadfast support. We at the Rockin’ Republic of Prog appreciate it! Best wishes as we all turn the corner and head into the New Year!

— Rick Krueger