A-ha

Stay On These Roads

Buy this CD-Harket's voice in fine form

Review Score:

(10/10)
Though best remembered by American-based listeners for their timeless October 1985 Billboard #1 "Take On Me," and its equally memorable companion video, this Norwegian trio OWNED the U.K. Top 75 from 1985-88 by placing their first six singles (and eight of their first nine!) in the top ten.

1988's Stay On These Roads, their third effort, sports thoughtful synthesizer arrangements that would make Jan Hammer, Paul Hardcastle or Vangelis proud. You can tell that, at some point, this album must have passed by the ears of later synth-popsters Londonbeat (whose late 1990 "I've Been Thinking About You" is a more polished "Touchy!") and Cause & Effect (especially their fabulous 1994 Trip).

The album works best on the sparsely arranged title track, "There's Never A Forever Thing," and the six-minute plus "Out of Blue Comes Green." Each of these tracks compares well to their previous stunners to this point, "The Blue Sky," "Living a Boy's Adventure Tale," and "Soft Rains of April."

The Morton Harket-Roy Orbison comparisons made by other reviewers are right on target; a true shame that they never collaborated. As was true of Orbison, Harket's piercing tenor is at once among the clearest, widest-ranging, haunting and flat-out beautiful voices in all of rock & roll. That he sings over equally beautiful arrangements, just as on most of Hunting High and Low and Scoundrel Days, is a bonus for anyone who loves 1980's Europop as much as I still do. BUY THIS CD!

(My only caveat is the annoyingly pointless "Touchy!" which feels under-developed and out of place here. However, I think the same of "Train of Thought," and both cuts still made the U.K. Top 15, so what do I know?! A-ha's third act still gets five stars in my book.)

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