The Lost Trident Sessions

Recorded in London on June 25, 1973, these sessions for a planned third Mahavishnu Orchestra album were shelved when the band decided to put out the live Between Nothingness and Eternity instead. Bootlegged in the past, two-track mixes of the missing album were discovered in the vaults in the late ’90s, paving the way for its official release in 1999. It’s thus the last of the three studio albums done by the original Mahavishnu lineup (with Cobham on drums, Goodman on violin, Hammer on keyboards, and Laird on bass). Although McLaughlin had been the only composer on the first two Mahavishnu albums, he penned only three of the six tracks here, with Hammer writing two and Laird pitching in one. It’s fiery, if perhaps over-busy at times, fusion, McLaughlin reaching his most feverish pitches in the frenetic concluding passage of the ten-minute “Trilogy.” The numbers written by other members than McLaughlin tend to be a little more subdued, and perhaps unsurprisingly less inclined toward burning guitar solos. – Richie Unterberger