Album Review: Honey Revenge - Retrovision

Release Date: June 23, 2023
Runtime: 36 min 26 sec

Spotify Link

Rating: 84/100

High Tracks: Airhead, Favorite Song, Habitual, Rerun, Murphy's Law, Worst Apology
Low Tracks: Seeing Negative (Disappointment), Fight Or Flight

On the front lines of the Pop-Rock vs. Pop-Punk battle is LA based band, Honey Revenge, and they are giving it their all. Core members, Devin Papadol and Donovan Lloyd, have a newly minted weapon in the form of a debut album with Thriller Records: Retrovision. With more or less blurred lines between the two very similar genres, Honey Revenge is taking an adamant stand on the pop & rock side with a body of art that's care free, danceable, and shoutable. Ticking off all four "f's", Retrovision is fresh, fit, focused, and most importantly, fun! The ratio of cathartic complaining to baseless confident is absolutely perfect and it has this way of invoking nostalgia without sounding old or dusty.

Something that Honey Revenge does very well is creating catchy, ear-worm rhythms, coupled with one off lines that stick to the sides of your brain. Some prime examples are:

This key's got me weak in the knees, yeah, you
Play me like I'm stuck on repeat
-Favorite Song

Do you wanna be my friend or do you wanna fuck?
-Habitual

Now my drink tastes like I should ruin your night
-Worst Apology

There's nothing inherently profound about any of these, but boy do they just WORK. And of course, the album's lead single, Rerun, is two and half minutes of toe-tapping goodness. It feels like rediscovering your favorite song after not hearing it for over a decade. To be frank, there isn't anything too risky or deep on this record. But good music doesn't have to be. I'm going to need more fingers and toes to count the number of impromptu dance parties I've had to this album, and that's a good enough metric for me. Retrovision has been putting up solid numbers since it's summer release and it will be very exciting to see how much this band can grow.