HONESTY’s debut album U R HERE feels like a tribute to the deepest, most introspective corner of British club music, with serious heart. The scope is multimedia, the guest features are diverse, and the sense of collaboration is sewn into the record’s DNA with HONESTY functioning more like a movement than a band, with a celebration of sound design and genre blending throughout. Emotional depth pulses through every track, every synth swell, and every vocal turn. For all its club-ready polish and technical brilliance, this is some of the most vulnerable and humane electronic music released in years.

The album opens with Liam Bailey - best known as the voice behind the massive Chase & Status hit Blind Faith - his voice laid bare over a gorgeously restrained synthscape - no drums for minutes, just tone, mood, and soul, giving space for the vocals to breathe, the pads to speak, and for grief or hope or both to come forward without rush. Every track feels designed and sculpted, the palette across the record lush and deliberate. The synths are warm, emotional, and rich. Tormentor feels like a euphoric, expansive, life-affirming sunrise, whilst others are soul-crushingly sad, but at no point does U R HERE feel self-indulgent or bogged down by its own introspection. You can move to it. There are moments that feel like slow, solitary headphone tracks, but there’s also a real sense that this would go off in a club.

Drawing from garage, house, ambient, trip-hop, there’s no easy genre label here and no clichéd beatwork. The drums are inventive but subtle, never stealing focus but always doing something interesting underneath, and the pacing is masterful - slow and sad at times, but then light-footed, groovy, even ecstatic. For all its moodiness, U R HERE never forgets that it’s club music. It just aims higher than most.

Where some electronic acts fall into the trap of cool detachment, HONESTY embrace vulnerability, and the emotional clarity really cuts through. This is a celebration of how emotionally powerful synthesizers can be, and at just ten tracks, the album covers extraordinary ground. It never drags. It’s smart, serious, sonically rich - but also groovy, fun, and alive. There are moments of surprise tucked into nearly every track. The opener sets the tone so delicately that when the drums hit, it’s a balm. The percussion work across U R HERE is consistently intricate and soothing, and never formulaic, pulling your attention fully, even when it’s subtle, managing to carry sadness, introspection, and groove all at once. If this is their foundation, the prospect of what HONESTY might become is genuinely thrilling, because this first dispatch is so complete, and so beautifully genre-less that it feels like the start of something significant. U R HERE feels like it’s standing on the shoulders of giants, with a clear through line from Goldie and Björk, to Burial and James Blake. It’s not trying to reinvent the wheel, but rather deepen and honour what came before, with every track feeling considered and perfectly weighted. In a time when so much feels disposable, HONESTY have crafted something lasting and deeply inspiring.