Mt. Joy: Hope We Have Fun
Mt. Joy have been a sleeper success for nearly a decade—the increasingly rare rock band that rises to arena-level fame while still maintaining a best-kept-secret feeling among fans. On their fourth album, Hope We Have Fun, the Philadelphia-bred quintet presents a set of tunes that’ll be hard to keep to yourself. This is road-trip rock-and-roll at its finest—13 sing-alongs that range from sweet and funky grooves to devastating, ghostly ballads. It’s a record that begs repeat plays, each song catchier than the one before it, with well-earned moments of emotional outpouring that’ll have you hollering along with the windows down—and maybe even tears of joy on your cheeks. You can basically break down Hope We Have Fun’stunes into two categories—the ones that’ll make you dance and the one’s that’ll break your heart. In that first category, there are plenty of wriggling grooves that’ll translate perfectly live. The muted soul-funk of “Pink Lady” delivers perfectly on the album title—it’s a smoky, sexy organ-led jam about a “pink lady on a red motorcycle” who just sold everything she owns to ride down to Mexico. In the same vein, “Groove in Gotham” is loose and jumpy—its chorus, “Yes, you get riled up!” rings true. But then there’s the kick-in-the-gut tunes. “More More More” swirls and floats along, guitars picking up steam and Matt Quinn’s vocals gathering intensity—until the levee breaks as he faces a reckoning, hollering “I got all I want; gotta keep stumbling home.” With Hope We Have Fun, Mt. Joy’s five members fuse into one, reading each other perfectly to make music that flows beautifully before it erupts into rapids. It’s a triumph.
