Greatest Hits: Remixed

Personnel: Rik Emmett (vocals, guitar); Gil Moore (vocals, drums); Mike Levine (keyboards, bass guitar).
Audio Mixer: L. Stu Young.
Audio Remixer: Rich Chycki.
In an age when record companies wantonly rape and pillage every last vestige of most successful rock band catalogs, leaving no stone unturned where unnecessary reissues, repackages, and blatantly recycled "best-of" sets are concerned, Canadian hard rock legends Triumph have gone surprisingly, nay shockingly, unscathed. Sure, there was 1989's Classics and 2005's Livin' for the Weekend: Anthology, but anyone will tell you that most bands of comparable stature have seen dozens of mostly unauthorized compilations, making the arrival of 2010's band-approved and frankly nearly perfect Greatest Hits: Remixed something like a unicorn sighting. Especially because the remixing in question doesn't dare alter or, God forbid, reinvent the hallowed original tracks, but really just boosts and modernizes them for contemporary listening standards (what remixing should do), thus bringing new life and renewed potency to all-time Triumph greats like "Allied Forces," "Lay it on the Line," "Magic Power," "Fight the Good Fight," etc., etc. Then there's the accompanying DVD, adding 14 gloriously nostalgic videos to the 14-song audio program for that definitive, time capsule experience (yes, even the kitschy, late-period ones like "Somebody's Out There" and "Never Say Never"). Only the Rik Emmett-free clips for "Child of the City" and "Love Hurts" -- recorded with later-day replacement Phil Xenidis -- briefly interrupt the nostalgic dream feel with evidence of cold harsh reality, but, well, listeners had to wake up sometime. And even with that minor distraction, Greatest Hits Remixed still fulfills its mission of supplanting previous collections as the definitive Triumph primer. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia