"Cast in Steel" is the tenth studio album by Norwegian band A-ha, released on 4 September 2015 by We Love Music and Polydor. It marks their first studio album since *Foot of the Mountain* in 2009, coming after their second reunion in early 2015.
The album is notable for being the first A-ha release to feature the original band logo since Memorial Beach in 1993 and the first to be produced by Alan Tarney since Stay on These Roads in 1988.
Following the release of their ninth studio album, Foot of the Mountain, a-ha announced their intention to retire as a band. However, in 2015, they revealed plans to reunite for a two-year period, release Cast in Steel, and embark on a world tour to promote the album. The album was released on 4 September 2015, just before a-ha performed at Rock in Rio in Brazil on 27 September for the festival's 30th anniversary.
Initially, Pål Waaktaar-Savoy and Morten Harket began recording the album in New York without Magne Furuholmen. Waaktaar-Savoy described the process as starting small, with Harket occasionally visiting his studio to record vocals for songs he liked, while the rest were left out. He noted that the three members of a-ha were never in the same studio during the recording sessions, expressing a sense of missing the collaborative feeling of working together in real time.
Furuholmen has mentioned that the reunion was not his decision. He explained that while the other two members wanted to proceed with the reunion, he faced a dilemma: whether to block the effort, let them continue without him, or participate despite his previous statements about the band's end.
