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A-Ha - Foot of the Mountain
| Guardian |
| The kind of album that sounds like it should be No 1 in Germany, which, of course, it was recently....full text |
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| Guardian |
| 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. This sort of thing comes naturally to a-ha, whose 1980s hits were shot through with melancholy; as they reach middle age, they're simply growing into themselves. Songs such as the stately, string-driven What There Is and the gently despairing Shadowside, which discusses the effect of depression on a marriage, are both thoughtful and subtle, and the one 80s soundalike, Sunny Mystery, is done with a delicate touch. Perhaps too downbeat to make much of a chart impression, but it's really not bad....full text |
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| Musicomh |
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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?). Foot Of The Mountain, the Norwegian trio's fourth album since their reunion at the start of the decade, is, by contrast, a tasteful and restrained affair. Both acts might baulk at the comparison, but A-Ha's career has panned out a lot like Take That's. Much like Gary Barlow and company, A-Ha underwent a lengthy hiatus before re-emerging with a sound more becoming of men of their respective ages. In A-Ha's case this means they've abandoned their inclination towards bombast in favour of producing gently chugging, mid-tempo pop-rock. These are songs that would slot into most contemporary radio playlists with the minimum of fuss: Foot Of The Mountain's third track, What There Is, reveals what Coldplay would sound like if they ever get round to having a synth-pop phase....full text |
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