IN the early noughties they were signed to an iconic indie label and toured with the biggest bands in the world.
Canadian rockers Hot Hot Heat delivered two top 40 albums in the UK and graced magazine covers at the height of their popularity.
But the band split in 2016 after the release of their self-titled fifth album.
And when frontman Steve Bays and bassist Parker Bossley formed indie/electro outfit Fur Trade the same year, it looked like that was very much the end for good.
Fast forward seven years, and Christmas has come early for fans wishing for a reunion.
Confirming its current line-up on Instagram with a new group shot, the band posted: "Hot Hot Heat is Steve Bays, Paul Hawley, Dante DeCaro and Parker Bossley. We will release a new song, ‘Shock Me’, on December 1st, 2023."
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The announcement came after a teaser video of a heavy new song a week ago, which had fans speculating about a comeback.
One excitable supporter wrote: "PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME YOURE COMING BACK I LOVE YALL SO MUCH I WILL DO ANYHTING TO SEE YALL!!!"
Another said: "DON’T TOY WITH MY EMOTIONS!!!"
A third wrote: "What the heck?"
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It's proving to be a purple patch for Bays with Fur Trade having released a new album in September.
He told fans the LP had been ten years in the making and likened its release to a child leaving home to start college.
Bays wrote: "I’m definitely a 'the process is the reward' guy, so I wasn’t really motivated by the thought of anyone outside of my friends actually hearing it. I just wanted to learn, and fur trade has always been my beta testing lab for evolving musical and technological curiosities. I’ve been in the deepest creative rabbit hole of my life!
"Maybe I had fallen out of love with the concept of releasing records.. the devil in my head saying 'will anyone even know it came out or care in 2023?' But then after working on so many bands on @lightorgan I thought oh hmm.. maybe that’s our home actually!
"And once we knew these songs had a tangible destination, a switch went off and we were writing/ recording/ mixing songs in two days start to finish. We knew our sound, we knew our overall vibe and flavour, we channelled the same brain it seemed, and it just fell out of us like magic."
Hot Hot Heat kicked off the new Millennium by signing to Sub Pop, the Seattle label that was once home to Nirvana.
The group's breakout hit Bandages stalled at number 25 in the UK charts after Radio 1 dropped it from its playlist due to the song's lyrical content and the war in Iraq, which was raging on at the time.
That didn't stop them signing to major label Warner and achieving their most successful album to date with sophomore release Elevator.
In the mid-noughties the band hit the road with the likes of Foo Fighters and Snow Patrol, though they never reached arena rock status themselves.
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