by Ed Rivadavia Once extremely popular among record buyers of the late '70s, live albums had been gradually going out of fashion with the introduction of MTV in the early '80s. But 1985 saw a temporary reversal of this trend thanks to a number of fine live releases (and many double sets, at that) like Iron Maiden's Live After Death and the Scorpions' World Wide Live. Sadly, Triumph's sprawling live opus Stages, which collected random performances of their biggest hits ("Lay It on the Line," "Magic Power," etc.) recorded over the previous three years did not qualify among these. A power trio whose drummer sang half the songs, Triumph had always been a rather limited live act which had eventually come to rely heavily on their stunning laser light show to enhance their stage presence. Unfortunately, said special effects couldn't very well embellish a piece of vinyl featuring performances of varying intensity and sonic quality culled from various tours, often with deafening silence between each track. To their credit, Triumph probably knew this, and maybe that's why they went to the trouble of including two brand-new studio tracks, of which "Mind Games" is the slightly less predictable.