★★★★★
Some bands just don't get their due until they're gone. Or, in the case of a-ha, almost gone. Late in 2009, the long-running Norwegian pop act announced it would split following one last tour. Suddenly, a band whose last four studio albums were not released in North America at all was getting the "25th Anniversary Limited Edition Deluxe Remaster" treatment, via these discs (available in the U.S. exclusively through Rhino's website)...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
A-ha revisit us to add a dram of sobriety to our post Christmas bad booze heads with 'Analogue'. Morten Harket, Magne Fulholmen and Paul Waakataar-Savoy have a lot to answer for in the time of year when music is the elixir for photocopying body parts, swigging brandy and kissing the incorrect partner. Even the student population who love a cheesy wiggle to 'Take On Me' will let out a melancholy fart when this is popped into the player...
- www.gigwise.com
2010-11-23
★★★★★
Those of you that were around for Mortenmania might have a-ha pegged as being strictly the province of those screechy schoolgirls that French and Saunders so lovingly lampooned, while those of you that weren't may hold to the School Disco/Guilty Pleasures thinking that they were simply fromageurists par excellence...
- thequietus.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
Some bands just don't get their due until they're gone. Or, in the case of a-ha, almost gone. Late in 2009, the long-running Norwegian pop act announced it would split following one last tour. Suddenly, a band whose last four studio albums were not released in North America at all was getting the "25th Anniversary Limited Edition Deluxe Remaster" treatment, via these discs (available in the U.S. exclusively through Rhino's website)...
- www.popmatters.com
2010-10-18
★★★★★
A double-CD collection celebrating the retirement, after 25 years, of what was once dismissed as a little more than a prototype Norwegian boy band seems like an overambitious concept. That's until one remembers that the Norwegian trio have sold in excess of 35 million records...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2010-09-30
★★★★★
For the casual music lover, a-ha equates the groundbreaking animated video for "Take On Me" and is quickly filed under VH1's dreaded "one hit wonder" slot. The release of The Singles 1984-2004 proves a-ha is nowhere near that slot. Besides the obvious "Take On Me," which opens this collection, familiar song after familiar song follow each other on The Singles—at least in the beginning...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2010-08-25
★★★★★
A-Ha's big '80s pop hits are, in the best possible sense of the word, ridiculous. The Sun Always Shines On TV stamps a big, steel-plated boot in the face of subtlety. Cry Wolf sounds like an audacious attempt to re-write Thriller as a massive orchestral pop song. And let's not forget Morten Harket's falsetto on the chorus of Take On Me (how could we?)...
- www.musicomh.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
A-Ha bowed out in 1993, usurped in teen bedrooms by Take That, and in the charts by novelty rave; it was not their finest hour. Seven years later, they reappeared with the wistful Minor Earth, Major Sky. Their ninth album Foot of the Mountain is a welcome return to the electronica of their early hits and a glorious reminder of their soaring melodies...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2010-08-22
★★★★★
On their ninth album, a-ha have rediscovered the synthesiser, but it's a bit desperate to claim, as their press release does, that their current sound sits "comfortably alongside the likes of Little Boots and La Roux". If they're to be likened to another band, Take That would be more accurate - despite lashings of keyboard, Foot of the Mountain's core consists of the same grown-up wistfulness that's powered Barlow and company's comeback...
- www.guardian.co.uk
2010-04-02
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