American rock band Mt. Joy released their fourth studio album, Hope We Have Fun, Friday, May 30, after a three-year hiatus. The album’s 13 tracks hone in on playful, folksy tones, lyrical simplicity, and soulful acoustics. Mt. Joy’s newest album perfectly captures the band’s down-to-earth energy with vulnerable, stripped-back instrumentals that feel fit to listen to on a summer night around a campfire. Hope We Have Fun is a deeply sentimental album that embraces the band’s indie folk side rather than their rock roots.
The band is made up of five members: Matt Quinn (vocals, guitar), Sam Cooper (guitar), Jackie Miclau (keys, piano), Sotiris Eliopoulos (drums), and Michael Byrnes (bass). Mt. Joy first formed in Philadelphia, where bandmates Sam Cooper and Matt Quinn met at their local high school. In 2016, the two reunited in Los Angeles and started working on music, naming the band after Mount Joy in the Valley Forge National Park in their home state of Pennsylvania. Later, the duo welcomed Michael Byrnes and released their first song, “Astrovan,” in September 2016.
Mt. Joy released their second hit single, “Sheep,” which got the attention of Sotiris Eliopolous and Jackie Miclau, leading them to join the group and completing the band’s lineup. Now complete with five members, Mt. Joy released their first album, Mt. Joy, March 2, 2018. In 2019, the band released their second album, Rearrange Us. Rearrange Us was met with bounties of success, building the band its fan base and debuting at #1 on Billboard’s Top New Artist chart.
After the album’s release, Mt. Joy went on tour with fellow folk band The Lumineers in 2020, but the tour was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the band released their third studio album, Orange Blood, and went on tour to promote the album.
Hope We Have Fun features stripped-back instrumentals and soulful undertones with occasional disruptive jumps to other genres such as country and rock. Producer Caleb Nelson used more rock tones than a typical Mt. Joy album for Hope We Have Fun, but branching into new territories helps their newest album sound fresh, and it’s the perfect addition to fans’ summer playlists.
Mt. Joy released “More More More,” the first single on Hope We Have Fun, February 21, 2025. “More More More” has a retrospective lyrical theme and a soft mix of melodies between the song’s verses and chorus. “Got to give you something you can keep,” vocalist Quinn sings in both of the song’s two verses. The song’s two line chorus is short and sweet: “And I’ll tell you one thing that’s gonna kick your ass/ If you look, don’t look back.” Lyrically plain with a repetitive bridge and outro, “More More More” verses stick out, but the rest of the song’s simplicity is easy to sing along to.
“Coyote,” the album’s second track, initially released March 21 and draws lyrical parodies to one of Mt. Joy’s old songs, “Rearrange Us.” With rock instrumentals, “Coyote” is the perfect song to perform live due to its lyrical repetitiveness and catchy refrain that acts almost like a second chorus to the song. “Together, together/ Coyotes together,” the song’s refrain softly repeats, drowned out slightly by the guitar in the background. Though the song lacks lyrical depth typical of a folk band, its rock-leaning touch counteracts its repetitiveness.
Track four, “Pink Lady,” is one of the album’s most alternative rock-leaning tracks due to its playful lyricism and complementary guitar, drawing parallels to that of alternative rock icon Beck. “Pink Lady on a red motorcycle,” Quinn and Cooper repeat during the song’s chorus, melding their vocals together seamlessly. The lack of depth in the song’s lyrics works in this instance, letting the catchy electric guitar riffs be the star of the show as Miclaus displays his talents on piano. “Pink Lady” has a retro vibe that adds a carefree feel to counteract some of the album’s gloomier, sentimental tracks.
Track five, “God Loves Weirdos,” has vocal tones similar to an earlier song, “Bathroom Light,” from Mt. Joy’s album Orange Blood. The song feels and sounds like a classic Mt. Joy song, speaking to the soul of long-time fans of the band. Mt. Joy’s ability to capture a moment and a feeling within a song is truly remarkable on “God Loves Weirdos.” “Hold on now, ‘cause we still got time, honey/ 4 a.m. and we’re laughin’ in the gas station/ You’re callin’ my name, it’s the sweetest thing,” sings Quinn during the song’s chorus.
“God Loves Weirdos” strays away from the rest of the album’s lyrically simplistic theme and feels as if it was written almost like an epilogue to “Bathroom Light,” which has a similar lyrical theme about falling in love with somebody in an everyday location. In that song’s case, a bar bathroom, and in “God Loves Weirdos’” case, a gas station, two equally glamorous locations.
“Wild and Rotten,” track nine, features folk artist Nathaniel Ratliff. Peppered throughout the song is a soft acoustic guitar that effortlessly matches Quinn and Ratliff’s smooth vocals. “Wild and Rotten” offers lyrical depth similar to “God Loves Weirdos” in its chorus: “I go out ridin’ in my car/ Everywhere you are, my star […] /Underneath the arch/To the old town bar where your car is parked.” The song’s catchy lyrics sound poetic, alluding to a small-town love story and crafting themes of both romance and nostalgia.
Track 10, “Highway Queen,” takes a turn toward more American folksy tones with instrumentals that draw parallels to “The Gold” by the Manchester Orchestra. The band self-funded and independently released “Highway Queen” March 8, and the song sticks to the album’s small-town, folksy energy as Quinn switches back and forth between belting out the song’s pre-chorus and chorus. The song’s simplicity in its chorus to pre-chorus format adds to its vintage Americana feel. “Honey, I ain’t scared of your demons/ That’s just what makes you,” Quinn sings to close out the song’s outro.
Mt. Joy’s album Hope We Have Fun embraces the band’s folksy roots while experimenting with more rock-centered instrumentals. Despite many of the tracks’ lyrical simplicity, the album’s recurring lyrical imagery is of bars, light, small town romances, and little moments full of love and gratitude. The vulnerability within the album is hard to miss and a leading cause of Mt Joy’s growing success. While the album’s folksy undertone to each track makes many of them blend together, it is clear that Mt. Joy has become very comfortable within their genre, and you can feel that comfort and ease within the album’s 13 tracks. Overall, Hope We Have Fun earns four out of five feathers.
