Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Anthems vs. Oceans

It's now time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, as we continue spotlighting inactive local metal, hard rock, and punk acts for current readers, as randomly chosen from our band links! This month's selection is an ambitious but sporadically active punk project that you may have read about here and elsewhere in the past decade, so here's what you should know!
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Anthems vs. Oceans (originally known as For July!)

Genre: Pop Punk/Emo

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Members: (Members not in their last full lineup in italics. This information may be incomplete, particularly regarding their bass position. Let me know if you can fill in any blanks!)

Dave Hunter (Audiosmile), all instruments
Jordan Latour, guitar
Ryan McLaughlin (As It Stands), drums

Audio/Video: Anthems vs. Oceans never released a studio album under either name that I'm aware of, but their single "I Won't Let You" was released on Apple Music & Google Play in 2016, and you can hear that plus six other songs on Dave's Soundcloud page. Three of those songs were also posted onto For July!'s MySpace page alongside three others, some credited under the planned album name "The Sick Sense of Artistry", but time has not been kind to any MySpace page in this regard. Dave's YouTube channel features a full band cover of B.o.B.'s "Airplanes" from 2010 and a couple of other band-related videos, but here's their 2014 original track "The Emo Song", courtesy of the band's YouTube channel!



Info/Analysis: Originally active circa 2008-2011, For July! were the flagship band for frontman Dave Hunter's own independent label idioRECORDS. Despite much internal optimism during this run, surviving public information on For July's as a formal band is in short supply nowadays, and I do not recall them playing a live concert. In 2014, Dave relaunched For July! as a solo project, and he made scattered online postings over the next two years regarding their new original material. Dave changed the project's name to Anthems vs. Oceans in April 2016, and released their latest single "I Won't Let You" that summer. New material was planned (including more acoustic content), but ensuing updates on their Facebook page were devoted to personal news or Dave's EDM project Audiosmile, with updates on either project last seen in January 2019. I admit that I tend to go for heavier punk subgenres, but For July! had a solidly upbeat sound that deserved a more active run!

From the slower and more emotional "I Let Go" to the soaring "Change Is", Dave crafted some catchy tunes that fans of Saosin or Blink-182 would definitely be in to, especially for a subgenre that wasn't too prevalent locally in the 2010s! I don't know what happened to Anthems Vs. Oceans (or Audiosmile), but hopefully Dave resurfaces with new music down the road, we need more artists with his ambition and production value around here!
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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! Next month, our random selection takes us back to Sault Michigan, but as this band (2012 metal project Denaturant) doesn't have enough surviving material to warrant a solo profile, so I have randomly picked a Sault Ontario band who I doubt has much public material anymore, namely mid-2000s hard rock quintet Driving Dave Home! Look for all of this on or around July 10th, and for more news and notes shortly! Thanks everyone!

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