a-ha: Foot of the Mountain

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.