A year ago, when 2025 was just beginning, I thought about the new music I was looking forward to throughout the year. There were a few artists – Parcels, Loyle Carner, Sam Fender, to name a handful – I was either expecting or hoping for new albums from. I was also aware that there would be plenty of names which would be new to me over the following 12 months, and that prospect was just as exciting.
My Album of the Week is one such example… of sorts. It’s the debut album from Loaded Honey – Love Made Trees.
Loaded Honey is an offshoot of indie-electronic giants Jungle. Founded in 2013 by J Lloyd (Josh Lloyd-Watson) and Tom McFarland, Jungle have grown to become a collective spearheading the nu-disco scene in the UK. Their music is exciting, uplifting and aesthetically stunning. Hits such as Back on 74 have deservedly earned the group sold out tours, festival headlines, and viral success.
Around 2021, vocalist Lydia Kitto began collaborating with Jungle, before becoming a full time member around 2023. She was instrumental in elevating Jungle’s success to the next level. Whilst working on Loving In Stereo (2021) and Volcano (2023), Lydia and J Lloyd began exploring a new creative avenue, and the Loaded Honey project was born.
Their debut album, Love Made Trees, was released in the summer of 2025, which was not long after I heard their name for the very first time through Jack Saunders on BBC Radio 1.
“If Jungle is for Friday and Saturday nights, Loaded Honey is for Sunday morning.”
This quote from the album’s promo material possibly describes this record better than the 613 words I have written for this feature. Love Made Trees is just as blissful and aesthetically stunning as Jungle’s work, but it’s softer, more reflective and somewhat more poignant. Where Jungle shine playing disco-infused dance floor fillers, Loaded Honey’s strength is their soulful emotion and mellow beauty. Where Jungle is for dancing with your friends with the volume cranked to 11, Loaded Honey is the soundtrack as you meet for a coffee the following morning. Two different but equally special moments, to match two different but equally special sounds.
Love Made Trees possesses the same 70s retro feel as much of Jungle’s work, but in a more natural, organic way. Elements of pop, R&B and soul guide you through a short but irresistibly sweet 33 minutes. There is plenty of diversity throughout the album, too: Over has slightly eerie, 50s-esque backing vocals, but applied tastefully and tactfully; Loaded Honey has a ballady, love song quality to it (one of my personal favourites); and the groovy Tokyo Rain wouldn’t sound out of place on a Jungle album. This is all enabled by exquisite production, as the album flows beautifully despite its era and genre hopping.
Whilst Loaded Honey were undoubtedly given life by Jungle, the project deserves to be respected in its own right, as its own sound, and for its own stories, which are just as rich and layered and often even more evoking and intriguing. The record moves impeccably through tales of love and heartbreak, and not once does it feel underdone, overdone or off-target. Cinematic backings paint the perfect canvas for their exploratory themes, and every lyric feels well considered and sincere. Loaded Honey has allowed J Lloyd and Lydia Kitto to open themselves up in a way which Jungle never has.
Loaded Honey don’t feel the need to match the energy of Jungle. That would be futile and, quite frankly, a waste of everyone’s time. They offer a different perspective, they paint a different picture, and they write a new chapter with Love Made Trees.
Waxing Lyrical 