Veteran Canadian rockers Honeymoon Suite have just released their ninth album, Wake Me Up When The Sun Goes Down. They have been around since 1981, and a lot has changed since then, but Honeymoon Suite have weathered the storms of time. They are still here and still entertaining their fans with quality music.
Honeymoon Suite – Wake Me Up When The Sun Goes Down
Release Date: Out Now
Words: Mark Rotherham
Things kick off very nicely with I Fly, which has a Slick, well-produced intro. It’s a fast-paced, upbeat song about trusting each other over time. As expected from Honeymoon Suite, it’s radio-friendly music that you could very easily listen to again and again on a long drive.
But do not be fooled by their soft rock image, because things quickly get heavier with Way Of The World. It has a nice, basey riff, and is a song about being disillusioned with life and the hard knocks we all face. It’s a clever half-empty or half-full song, leaving us to decide on that for ourselves.
Third song in, and there are changes again. Every Minute has a very eclectic Beatles-style opening, its staccato rhythm leaving me not quite sure where it’s going. But they make it work, and it is a testament to the band’s diversity and musical skill. Honeymoon Suite’s flag is very firmly planted in rock’s middle ground, but any suggestions of superficiality end there. This band has the depth and the maturity to take on any competition.
Cue the piano intro, and we are into ballad territory with Way Too Fast. As you would expect, it is a slow-moving, solid love song, which cautions the listener on, you’ve guessed it, moving way too fast. It is exactly what you would expect from this band: quality, thoughtful mid-road entertainment, and if that is your appetite, then you will like this menu.
Next up is Stay This Time. This is an upbeat, hopeful song of finally finding ‘the one’. Here is a band that echoes the masses and masses of radio-friendly AOR bands who literally deluged the airwaves back in the day, and who will take fans, diehard fans maybe, back to that era in an instant.
But do not be fooled, Honeymoon Suite can do curve balls with the best of them, and Crazy Life goes all mean and bluesy. So you heard it here first. Honeymoon Suite produce not the just safe music that your parents would like just as much as you. This is a band that still want to rip it up and go nuts. Crazy Life is definitely my favourite song so far on this album. I sure hope this one makes its way to the live set.
We are back to more familiar territory with Live On, a heartfelt song of lost, abandoned love. Songs like these defined my lovesick teenage years. I gotta say I am glad I am not there anymore, but it’s a nice, bittersweet reminder of days gone by.
And in direct contrast to the previous track, Keep Our Love Alive is about trying and fighting to keep the relationship going. With the exception of two tracks on this album, we are firmly in the love song territory, and the band cover all aspects of the topic, both good and bad. So whatever mood you are in when it comes to songs of the heart, Honeymoon Suite have got covered.
Mostly predictable until, that is, we get to the next track, appropriately called Unpredictable. Blues again? Oh yes, and how! Love songs, yes, ballads, yes, middle road soft rock, yes. When you pick up a Honeymoon Suite album, you know that is what you are getting, but this is drum-beat, chugging blues that is as down and dirty as can be. And oh yeah, hitch me a ride on that coal-smoke blues train. Unpredictable? Damn right, just like the song says. Loving this tune.
Then we are ending on a high with Ever Leave You Lonely. A nice, clear opening riff, and we have got probably the fastest rocker on the album. Honeymoon Suite push all of their soft-rock levers on this track. This is an absolute affirmation that whatever sad or tragic themes might have been touched on in earlier songs, the band, like us, will learn from everything that has gone before and get it right.
“The new album actually came together pretty quickly compared to Alive,” Derry Greham said. “We didn’t have a pandemic to deal with. Also, our producer, Mike Krompass, had moved back to Canada, and this put us all much closer together. We recorded most everything at Mike’s home studio outside of Toronto.
“A lot of the songs were written quickly by Johnnie, Mike, and me in the studio, and I think they have a very fresh, live sound with a sense of urgency and excitement. I had also brought in a few much older ideas that we re-worked and made into great new songs.
“The album is classic Honeymoon Suite. Every song is different and great in its own way. It’s an album that will grow on you the more you listen, and we think people are going to love it.”
Wake Me Up When The Sun Goes Down is an album that will delight their fans, and maybe even win them over a few more. They do what they do, which is melodic rock songs, mostly about love and relationships, but there’s more than that.
They have also got a hard-edged blues heritage in there, which comes out just enough to spoil the party, but in a decidedly good way. And that is a combination you do not actually get too often, which, for me, will earn them brownie points for that alone.
If you’re a fan of Survivor, or Bon Jovi, or heck, even a bit of Jeff Healey, then this album will likely have something you will want to listen to.
Honeymoon Suite – Wake Me Up When The Sun Goes Down – is out now via Frontiers Music Srl. For more details, visit ffm.to/honeymoonsuitewmuwtsgd.
