As promised, Norwegian pop trio a-ha has announced details of its first U.S. concerts in a decade: The group will bring its Hunting High and Low Live tour to this country for just two shows, at Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theater, in late September of 2020. Details right here.

Norwegian pop trio a-ha will return to American shores next year for the first time in a decade when they bring their Hunting High and Low Live tour to the U.S. for two as-yet-unannounced concerts in September — and they hope to play more stateside shows in 2021. Details right here.

The reunited Norwegian pop trio a-ha has begun rolling out summer 2018 tour dates, including a half-dozen shows in the U.K. that will find the group playing football stadiums and cricket grounds with all-star synthpop support from OMD and Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins. See full dates here.

Record Rack: A round-up of the week’s new albums, expanded reissues and/or box sets, appearing each Monday on Slicing Up Eyeballs. All releases due out this Friday unless noted. This week’s haul includes releases from The Replacements, The Church, The Blow Monkeys, a-ha and The Selecter.

The Pet Shop Boys will usher in 2013 with the release of “Memory of the Future,” the third single off their latest album Elysium, on Jan. 1 in two different download bundles, featuring a number of new remixes of the track as well as three new B-sides — one of which, “One Night,” is being premiered today here at Slicing Up Eyeballs.

This week’s new releases include ‘Out of My Hands,’ the new English-language solo album from a-ha’s Morten Harket, plus a new CD reissue of The Tubes’ ‘Outside Inside, a red-vinyl reissue of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘One Hot Minute,’ and a digital-only U.S. release of the new Erasure ‘Essential’ best-of.

As 2011 quickly winds to an end, we’re happy to roll out the first of four days’ worth of results from our second-annual Slicing Up Eyeballs Readers Poll, in which nearly 500 of you cast ballots for your favorite new, reissued and freshly compiled music of the year. First up: Your Top 10 compilations, box sets and/or live albums.

Just eight months after a-ha’s farewell concert in Oslo, the Norwegian pop trio — saying they were ‘shaken to the soul’ — have announced they will reunite later this month to perform at the national memorial service honoring the victims of last month’s mass killings in that country.

This week’s new releases include brand-new albums from veterans The Feelies (‘Here Before’) and Meat Puppets (‘Lollipop’), plus CD, DVD and Blu-ray releases celebrating a-ha’s final concert last December in Oslo, Norway.

This week’s new CDs include reissues from Morrissey (‘Bona Drag’), Midge Ure (‘The Gift,’ ‘Answers to Nothing’) and Madness (‘Mad Not Mad’), plus a live disc from Blondie (‘Blondie at the BBC’), a new compilation of hits and covers from Ministry (‘Every Day is Halloween’) and collections from a-ha (’25: The Very Best Of’), The Undertones (‘Teenage Kicks: The Very Best Of’) and Stiff Records (‘Born Stiff’).

With their worldwide farewell tour well underway, Norwegian pop trio a-ha last week released the music video for their final single, ‘Butterfly, Butterfly (The Last Hurrah).’

Thanks to the folks at Canada’s HushMusic, we’ve got copies of the forthcoming ‘Retro:Active 7 — Rare & Remixed’ compilation CD to give away to three lucky Slicing Up Eyeballs readers. The new installment features mixes of songs by Echo & The Bunnymen, Tears For Fears, OMD and a-ha.

This week’s new releases include ‘Acoustic & Electric Live,’ a new concert Blu-ray from the Pixies; ’25: The Very Best Of,’ a new 2CD compilation from a-ha; and ‘Fidelity!,’ the debut from Chrissie Hynde’s new project JP, Chrissie & The Fairground Boys.