It’s getting on for six years to the day since we last reviewed some Honeymoon Suite ‘product’ – their enjoyable Hands Up EP – so to say I’ve been waiting eagerly for this new album, Alive, to surface would be something of an understatement. Was it worth the wait? Oh yes… Absolutely yes!

I’ll confess I was worried when I heard the band was working with producer Mike Krompass, a man who has worked with names like Meghan Trainor and, worse, Theory of a Deadman; There’s nothing worse to my mind than legacy bands turning to producers who know what the kids want when it’s time to make a comeback record. Silly old men wearing the musical equivalent of white trainers and too-tight jeans? Nobody wants that…

But he’s also worked with Steven Tyler, so he clearly knows what makes old rockers tick and, blow me down with a feather, it looks like he was just the right fit for Honeymoon Suite in 2024. He’s brought a sleek, modern sheen to the sound for sure – Tell Me What You Want especially has the crossover appeal to smash the generation gap at the stroke of a Derry Grehan string slide, but he also makes sure that the band retain their trademark classy eighties AOR sheen to boot. As tightrope walks go, it’s a good ‘un, and Krompass deserves high credit for bringing the band up to date whilst allowing them to retain all the trademarks we’ve grown to love over the years.

Those trademarks are largely the voice of Johnnie Dee – still mercifully intact after all this time – and the biting guitar of Grahan, but the whole band come to the party on brash rockers like Give It All and display their versatility on the superb Love Comes, which could easily find a home on modern country radio with just the smallest of tweaks. Rhythm section Dave Betts (drums) and Gary Lalonde (bass) sound absolutely huge on this track, as they do on standout track Broken, which reels in the years beautifully to the band’s glory days whilst still maintaining Krompass’ modern edge. The best of both worlds? You bet!

Listening to the album as a whole, it’s hard to see how the band could have done anything better; They’ve done more than enough to keep the old guard happy but it’s easy to see this album bringing in legions of new fans with a bit of luck and a lot of radio play. As win-win situations go, Alive is a pretty good one, and it’s an album I’m going to be enjoying for a long while to come…

Alive releases on February 16th.