Honeymoon Suite, a melodic rock band hailing from Canada, should in the ideal have been as huge as Bon Jovi are today. Despite being very successful in their homeland in the 80’s they never quite made the step up to the big leagues outside of Canada, despite the fact that two of their albums, 'The Big Prize' and 'Racing After Midnight' are arguably two of the best melodic/hard rock albums you’ll ever hear. Just why they never made the big through outside of Canada is completely beyond me!

In total Honeymoon Suite recorded six studio albums as well as a pair of live albums the obligatory "Best Ofs". Sitting in this last category is 'Feel It Again: An Anthology', The CD is obviously a collection of material and is the best next thing to box set given that it features an excellent biography of the band (by Campbell Divine) and track info by the band's main men Johnnie Dee  and Derry Grehan. 

The first of this two disc set basically cherry picks the best tracks from the bands first four albums as well as adding a couple of rarities. The disc is organized chronologically, with the first four tracks taken from the lightweight debut album. 'New Girl Now' was the song that landed the band its record deal and the excellent 'Burning In Love' is still firm favourite with this reviewer. Tracks five to nine however are all bona fide classics taken from 'The Big Prize',  the album that should have catapulted the band to stardom. 'Feel It Again' starts with a simple bass line before the guitars carry you away, 'Bad  Attitude' staggers along all cocksure of itself on great Van Halen-esque riff whilst 'What Does It Take' is the consummate power ballad. That brings us to 'All Along You Knew', a uniquely brilliant track featuring the flute work of Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson. The guitar/flute interplay simply has to be heard to be believed. The last song from 'The Big Prize' , 'Once The Feeling', whilst a good album track doesn't quite reach the standards of the previous songs and potentially should have given way on this compilation to 'Wounded', although  as it’s a personnel favourite I may be slightly biased. 

'Those Were The Days' is the first of the rarities, a track that was only ever used in the movie The Wraith and it’s a great keyboard based little rocker. But following this tracks 11 to 14 are culled from the bands second classic album in succession, 'Racing After Midnight'. 'Lethal Weapon', the theme to the movie of the same name, is followed by 'Lookin Out For Number One', the theme tune to a thousand Monday mornings. I bet there's not a single person out there that can't relate to the line “Can’t believe it’s Monday morning I’m still living in the weekend and I feel it pounding in my head!”.... 'Love Changes Everything' is a pounding up beat rocker and rounding out the 'Racing After Midnight' interlude comes 'Other Side of Midnight', this reviewers anthem for years.  

The second rarity on offer is 'I Believe In Father Christmas' which was only ever available on a Christmas compilation album and is a fairly faithful cover of the Greg Lake original. The last two tracks 'Say You Don’t  Know Me' and 'Little Sister are lifted from the bands fourth album 'Monsters Under The Bed'. This album saw some huge changes for the band, but the twp songs represented here show little of these changes and could have easily been taken form either of the previous two albums. And thus the first disk ends. So I hear you say, a best of and two hard to find tracks, why should I bother buying this package as I have all the Honeymoon Suite albums anyway? The answer my friend lies on disc 2. 

The first five songs are again taken from the 'Monster’s Under The Bed' opus but unlike the two songs featured on Disc 1 show the band developing their style and lyrical improvements. 'Monsters was actually a great album and one that I’ve only come to appreciate with time. As it was bugger to find in the UK when it was released these songs form an excellent  showcase to what the band were capable of at the time.

Tracks 6 and 12 are taken from the Canadian album 'Lemon Tongue' that was released in 2001, some ten years or so after the Monsters album and indicate how band, by this time, had moved into a more modern direction, whilst keeping their ears for a good tune. 'Lemon Tongue' was never officially released in European, in it’s  place an album called 'Dreamland' saw the light of day. This mixed several tracks from Lemon Tongue with the addition of five or six unreleased tracks that more in common with  band's mid 80’s style. It is these songs that bookend  'Touch The Sun' and 'Into Me, Into You'  with 'Lagavulin' in particular tickling this reviewers fancy as it happens to be about one of my favourite tipples - whisky!

This all brings us to the main selling point of this album, eight previously unreleased  tracks form the period 1995 to 1998 that shows further the bands development from 80’s melodic rockers to more modern sounding singer/songwriters. 'Breathe' has distinctive grunge influences, Tightrope is based a round a strange drum pattern, although is surprisingly catchy, 'Where’s My Wire come across like a harder version of The Rembrandts. 'Difference', 'My Right Hand' & 'Under My Skin', are all acoustic based pieces showing the bands move away from the keyboard dominated early works. The final track,  'I’m So Boring' (no comments please) is another great song that lyrically deals with a man who has never changed and hence could be aimed at all those fans who just want 'The Big Prize' part two.

Basically this collection is almost perfect and would have gotten my only ever 10/10 but for two very small points. I mentioned earlier that I would have included the excellent track Wounded from The Big Prize, secondly though is the fact that no live material is included, and the band are great live as anybody who has seen will testify. All in all though 'Feel It Again' is an excellent value for money package that appeals to both the rabid fan, the passing fan and is must for any fan melodic rock or  good rock music in general. 

Let us know your views on 'Feel It Again'

Track List

Disc 1
Stay In The Light
New Girl Now
Wave Babies
Burning In Love
Feel It Again
Bad Attitude
What Does It Take
All Along You Knew
Once The Feeling
Those Were The Days
Lethal Weapon
Lookin' Out For Number One
Love Changes Everything
Other Side Of Midnight
I Believe In Father Christmas
Still Lovin' You
Long Way
Say You Don't Know Me
Little Sister

Disc 2
Bring On The Light
The Road
Come (Let Me Take You There)
Next To You
All I Wanted
Touch The Sun
Undone
Lagavulin
Gone
Even Now
The Way I Do
Into Me, Into You
Breathe
Tightrope
Where's My Wire
Under My Skin
Sit For Hours
Difference
My Right Hand
I'm So Boring

Line Up

Johnnie Dee - Vocals/Guitar
Derry Grehan - Guitars

Keyboards:
Ray Coburn
Rob Preuss
Peter Nunn

Bass:
Gary Lalonde
Steve Webster
Tom Lewis
Tim Harrington
Rob Lidlow
Stan Mizcek

Drums
Dave Betts
Jorn Anderson
Creighton Doane
Troy Feener
Bret Carrigan