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Omnidirectional
4 Out Of 5 Stars

A slight comeback from the uneven "Stay On These Roads," A-Ha's "East of The Sun West of The Moon" started with the clap of a thunderstorm and ends with a fading rainstorm and more thunder. That should be enough to warn us all that the disc is off to some pretty moody territories, and you'd be correct in that assumption. It also was A-ha's total fade out from the American market, failing to break onto the US charts, although the terrific cover of "Crying In The Rain" did get some adult contemporary airplay. It doesn't diminish the band's chemistry in the slightest, though. Core duo of Morten Harket's falsetto vocals and Pal Waaktaar's guitar with Magne Furuholmen keyboards maintain the trio's overall sound.

Yet that sound, while unmistakeably A-ha (due mainly to Harket's incredible voice) is reaching out the bounds of synth pop. There's the moody and extended "Sycamore Leaves" and the guitar driven "Cold River." The harmonies of "Crying in The Rain" are more subdued than soaring, and the title track is a great story of looking for lost love. "Rolling Thunder" always felt like the end of the album to me, but there's a melancholy coda to follow..."Seemingly Nonstop July" ends the disc on a barebones acoustic guitar and modest keyboard line as Harket croons a hopeful, if brief, paean to younger lovers while a voice in the background yells "You better wise up, endless pain!"

It makes "East of the Sun" a middling A-Ha album, on a par with "Scoundrel Days", maybe a little under the follow-up "Memorial Beach." They were still making decent albums, even if the US had stopped paying attention.

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Current Location: Philadelphia
Current Music: "Crying In The Rain" a-Ha

An A-Ha Moment!
5 Out of 5 Stars

It's a shame that A-Ha never fully realized their star potential with American audiences. Other then the still charming "Take On Me" and the follow-up "The Sun Always Shines On TV" from their "Hunting High And Low" debut, their chart success stateside never matched the band's international superstardom. Which means that - as far as American audiences were concerned - their best-of's had not been issued here until 2010 (thanks, Rhino). I actually picked my copy of this up while on vacation in London. It was well worth it.

A-Ha were far more than their pretty faces on the MTV videos. (But to be the band that could lay credit to the "Take On Me" - or even the lesser known "Cry Wolf" - video.) Seven studio albums and world-wide sales of more than 60-thousand albums certainly vindicates that point. What most of us Yanks missed was the frequently inventive pop-music this trio turned out. They were masters of the confectionery ballad, with songs like "Manhattan Skyline," "Velvet" and "Stay On These Roads" masterworks of melodrama.

In their later albums, A-Ha was finding conflict within their group and the albums began to reflect the turmoil. (The CD also contains an honest recollection of the band's history.) The synths began to take a lower profile and more live (and livelier) recording began to unfold. While A-Ha was still making some cutting edge pop, a song like "Minor Earth Major Sky" is particularly dark. There is even a relatively faithful version of the Everly Brothers' "Crying In The Rain."

Then there is the matter of that voice. Morten Harket had a falsetto that rivaled Freddie Mercury's and certainly influenced singers like The Darkness' Justin Hawkins. It hit that impossibly high note in "Take On Me" but could also add to the drama of the band's shot at a James Bond theme, "The Living Daylights." Obviously hoping Bond would do for them what "A View To A Kill" did for Duran Duran, A-ha rocks it in a cinematic way, and it could possibly be both Harket's best vocal and the most under appreciated of all the James Bond movie themes.

Which about sums up this collection. There is some of the finest pop you've never heard here, new wave of otherwise. Terrifically re-mastered for this CD, A-Ha "The Singles - 1984/2004" showcases an under appreciated band who created some perfectly realized music, even without the sun shining on them in the US.

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Current Location: Philadelphia
Current Music: "Hunting High And Low" A-Ha

A Road Less Travelled

3 Out of 5 Stars

The third album from A-ha was their first to show any slips in quality, after their first two albums of impeccable, smart Synth-pop. "Stay On These Roads" sounds disjointed and rushed, like the songs were brought together in a hurry without regard for the more coherent flow of the debut and the great "Scoundrel Days." Still, there's plenty of enjoyable music here, and a couple of obvious missed opportunities to keep the band's commercial fortunes alive in the USA.

In fact, this was the last A-Ha album to even chart in America, peaking at a measly 148 before vanishing. It also contains one of the very few failed James Bond theme songs, "The Living Daylights." (Oddly enough, a rerecorded version. The original can be found on the A-ha singles collection.) Full of the usual dramatic pulse of the John Barry themes, "The Living Daylights" is every bit as good as Duran Duran's "View To a Kill," yet for some reason, only took off overseas. The same fate befell the poppier "Touchy!" which was a top ten international hit.

Once again, the quality was good, even if the attention wasn't being paid. The danceable "The Blood The Moves The Body" and the emotional title track again show why vocalist Morten Harket is such a unique voice in pop music. There's also the six-minute plus "Out of Blue Come Green," which may be his best vocal in the whole of A-ha's canon. "Stay On These Roads" has a bit too much filler for my tastes, but the high points still make it a good album.

Scoundrel Days (Remastered Deluxe Edition)

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Current Location: Philadelphia
Current Music: "The Living Daylights" A-Ha

The Hunt is Over
4 Out Of 5 Stars

A-Ha made it big in America exactly one time, with this album and the number one single "Take On Me." The rest of the world kept them at superstar status, with hits continuing through the band's 25 year career. Granted, "Take on Me" is one of the absolute best pop singles of the decade, yet A-ha deserved a better fate in the states than to be known for "Hunting High and Low."

Part of that issue is how the video and the record company obviously thought these Norwegian pretty boys were the next Duran Duran and set about marketing them that way. While much of "Hunting High and Low" does fit the bill of lightweight synth-pop, A-Ha had much more up their sleeves. Songs like "Train Of Thought" had a darker lyric hidden inside the confection, and the title track was a great ballad about lost love. The only other single a-ha pushed into the US Top 40, "The Sun Always Shines On TV," is a dramatically produced song that highlights lead singer Morten Harkett's vocal flair.

The only time the band stumble is towards the end, with "Dream Myself Alive" and "Love Is Reason," which come off as filler synth-pop. They redeem themselves with the emotional closer, "Here I Stand and Face The Rain," which was a harbinger of how much the band would change by the much darker "Scoundrel Days" follow-up and the emotionally deeper album that came yet after. But for sheer pop thrills, "Hunting High and Low" remains a great album, and the remaster sounds terrific.

(Bonus disc contains a batch of so-so unreleased material, inconsequential demos, with the real treats being disc one's bonus extended mixes of "The Sun Always Shines" and the title track.)

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Current Location: Philadelphia
Current Music: "Train Of Thought" A-ha

The Band That Cried Wolf
4 Out of 5 Stars

I have a feeling that the suits at Warner Brothers probably had to take some stomach settlers after A-Ha delivered "Scoundrel Days," their second album. "Where's the "Take on Me" hit," they probably whimpered? Because unlike the sugary Duran Duran pop that A-Ha's first big hit delivered, "Scoundrel Days" was dark, menacing pop, and while the video that made the band stars dressed them up as pretty boys, this album made them look thoughtful and more than a little dark.

That change-up was something I really enjoyed about this album. A-Ha may have come from a power-pop start, but they evolved quickly into a pop band with a dark center. Even with the crystalline falsetto of Morten Harket, the band could not disguise the anguish of the title track or the atmospheric dread of "Cry Wolf." They also sound more mature. "The Swing of Things" has smooth glide to it, and should have been the first single. "Soft Rains of April" is a gorgeous waltz that closes the album with a soft goodbye. I enjoyed the first a-ha album, but songs like the ones on "Scoundrel Days" made me a fan.

PS: The bonus tracks are OK; other than the live tracks on disc 2 and the extended versions on disc on, they're negligible. (Caveat; I'm not a big fan of demo-versions.)

Hunting High And Low (Remastered Deluxe Edition)

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Current Location: Philadelphia
Current Music: "Cry Wolf" A-ha

A Songwriting Tapestry
4 Out of 5 Stars

A delightful collection that offers both essential music and an educational process in the creation of the Great American Songbook. The first disc of Carole King's own productions is wonderful, showing the evolution of King as a writer and performer, the second disc looks at King's mastery of many forms of songwriting and how much she (and often, husband Gerry Goffin) worked innovation into songform.

The first disc starts with a rarity, King's "It Might As Well rain Until September." It was originally written as a hand-off to Bobby Vee, whose record company didn't want to use it. It became one of Carole's first hits in 1962, and sounds like the Brill Building style. But when she moved to California almost a decade later, she had changed profoundly. "Tapestry" became a watershed moment in pop culture; one of the first albums to spend multiple years on the chart, the first female artist to write and hit with her own compositions, a multiple Grammy award winner.

It established King as a star in her own right, and led to many more hits through the seventies. "Jazzman," "Sweet Seasons," "Only Love Is Real" are all here, but the Capitol records period is left out (including her own hit version of "One Fine Day"). The interesting material is the music made in the current decade, like "The Reason" for Celine Dion, where here Dion returns the favor and sings backup. "Now and Forever" was from the movie "A League of Her Own" and is included here in a new version. It's a reminder of how her talent has stayed strong.

The second disc is the eye opening chronicle of her contributions as a performer. "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" was an early hit that was one of the first to include strings to a pop record. "Crying In The Rain" was the last big hit for The Every Brothers, but was unique in its early use of internal rhymes. "The Loco-Motion" was a cash-in on the dance crazes like The Twist, bit the open saxophone blast and chugging drums that dominate the recording were new for their time. In the book "Always Magic In The Air" about the Brill Building years and the songwriters, Goffin, King, Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann were on a trip and decided to count the number of songs each had written while listening on the radio. King won because "Cryin' In The Rain" played and she had written that with Howard Greenfield had co written it with Carole instead of her husband Goffin.

You also hear the standards. "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman," "Up On The Roof" to name just three. I have a couple of quibbles, like why Billy Joel's cover of "Hey Girl" instead of Freddie Scott's (or even Donnie Osmond, who at least had a hit with it). And at 15 songs, a repeat of two (like A-ha's international #1 version of "Cryin' in The Rain" or James Taylor's "Up On The Roof") would have been nice. I would have been really tickled to hear The Motels' cover of the controversial "He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss." But all together, this is a substantial collection of great music.