St. Louis indie rockers Hot Joy are back and wasting zero time. Just a few months after dropping their excellent debut EP ‘Small Favor,’ they’ve returned with a double-shot digital 45: Quality Control b/w Leaning, out now via Tiny Engines. If ‘Small Favor’ was their coming-out party, this new release feels like the afterparty — a little more raw, a little more self-assured, and maybe even a little bit weirder (in the best way).
Leaning — the second single from the pair — is streaming everywhere now, and it captures the band at their most emotionally transparent. Bassist/vocalist Nicole Bonura sings of comforts that no longer comfort, gummy worms that taste like gasoline. But even when things feel bleak, Hot Joy keeps things buoyant. The track blends melancholy with momentum, buoyed by the band’s signature trick: intertwining vocals from Bonura and guitarist Austin McCutchen that somehow make every experience feel collective. It’s fuzz-pop therapy in under four minutes.
The new tracks were recorded in L.A. with Jay Som’s Melina Duterte behind the boards — a perfect match for Hot Joy’s evolving sound. Duterte brings a salt-swept clarity to their scuzzy sweetness, while Foxing’s Eric Hudson layers the mix with just enough shimmer and swirl to let the songs breathe without losing their punch.
Quality Control might be the band’s most immediate track to date — Paste Magazine called it “the best thing they’ve done yet,” and honestly, it’s hard to argue. It’s a serotonin-soaked indie banger that finds McCutchen melting down in a bowling alley bathroom mid-mushroom trip, yet somehow, it still shimmers. Call it controlled chaos. Or maybe cathartic collapse.
Hot Joy has been compared to everyone from The Breeders to Hotline TNT to Slow Pulp, and while those are all fair touchstones, the band is carving out a lane that feels entirely their own — syrupy, slacker-fuzz anthems that wrap the mundane in melodic warmth and just the right amount of distortion.
The story of how this band came together still reads like indie-rock fate. Guitarist Curt Ochsner and McCutchen were writing together casually when Bonura and drummer Wil McCarthy jumped on board just two weeks before recording ‘Small Favor’. But what could’ve been a one-off project became something real — and fast. The chemistry was too strong to ignore. Weekly writing sessions followed, as did shows, bonding, and ultimately, a west coast trip to cut the new songs.
“These songs feel a little more mature, a little more grown up,” McCutchen says. “This is what it sounds like for all four of us to have our minds equally in the pot.” You can hear that unity in the music — this is a band firing on all cylinders, testing boundaries, and figuring out just how big this thing can get.
Hot Joy isn’t just revisiting early-2000s indie rock aesthetics — they’re reshaping them, bending them into something warmer, stranger, and deeply personal. Quality Control b/w Leaning is a bold step forward and a reminder that this band is just getting started.
For fans of: fuzz-drenched vulnerability, sweet-and-salty harmonies, and the perfect soundtrack for staring out your window and feeling feelings.
Go stream it. You’ll feel better.
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