Hope Atlantic

A symptom of becoming a slightly older, slightly more jaded gentleman, is an increasing struggle to find new bands to enthuse about from the word go.

Winnipeg's Hope Atlantic are a wonderful exception to that accidentally and ill-conceived rule. 'Mercy Street Choir' is a mash up that lands somewhere in between the US rock and roll folk punk from the likes of the Gaslight Anthem and Fake Problems, and British pop rock upstarts like Futures and Francesqca - though that said, you don't really need to like any of the aforementioned to find something to really enjoy.

There's much to be said for the power of honesty in your songwriting, and the lyrics and piano arrangements give the band a great character.

'Mercy Street Choir' stands head and shoulders with the great debut releases of the year, most notable for the soaring chorus in 'Bad Crash' and the entirety of closer 'Oklahoma', and there's plenty of people who'll love Hope Atlantic on both sides of the pond. - Punktastic.com

Although Hope Atlantic play rock music, they are kinda hard to categorize. At times there’s hints of Gaslight Anthem punk. But then the parlor piano comes in, and our heads are spinning and bopping at the same time. The vocals go from dive-bar gruff to angelically clean, sometimes within the same song (“Lost At Sea”). Which, yeah, is nice, I guess, if you care about bonus points like creativity. If you don’t care about creativity, or if you’re just a person with some ears, then the Mercy Street Choir EP will work for you, too. Because at its heart, all this EP ends up becoming is a few songs from a few Canadian guys who understand storytelling and melody. Lots of lines are toed, and lots of fun is had.

Despite having former members of bands I probably hate (Sick City and some band described as being both “progressive” and “metal,” yuck, right?!), this EP is both enthralling and sorta benign. Few wacko chances are taken or needed. On songs like “Cheap Summer” and “Oklahoma” the band’s punk roots are laced with country music-influenced nuances like strings and a certain indefinable “twangy” quality. And remember, they’re Canadian! Don’t cry fake accent wolf too soon, though, because the band’s ringleader Jordy Heppner spent some time in Oklahoma where many of these songs first took shape. So although this style may have started off foreign, it became the norm after time on the range, or whatever colloquialism they use in Oklahoma.

Point is, this part punk-part rock-part country mixture makes for a sound that can fit lots of different palettes. Heck, it can fit your (I’m sure!) extremely diverse palette with different songs on different days. It’s an ear chameleon, which is definitely not a thing I just made up right now. So I guess what I’m saying in way too many words is that Mercy Street Choir rocks like a mofo. Even if you’re schizophrenic. - Absolutepunk.net

The members of Hope Atlantic are representing their hometown of Selkirk, Man.
“We feel that we’re the voice of the kids and the people who are like us from the
place we’re from,” 23-year-old bassist TJ Stevenson says.

Stevenson, singer-guitarist Jordy Heppner, 22, and drummer Matty Hallick, 21, grew up together in the city 20 km. northeast of Winnipeg. They went to school on Mercy Street, close to where Stevenson lived and where they wrote their first songs.

In September, the band – which also includes 27-year-old keyboard player Jeremy Penner – will release its first EP, Mercy Street Choir.

“Nothing really comes out of Selkirk, so it’s fitting,” Heppner says. “Choirs give voice to things, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

The five-track EP is a varied collection. Oklahoma is an acoustic guitar-based track about a long distance relationship; Purple City and Cheap Summer are catchy, upbeat pop songs; and Lost at Sea and Bad Crash are U2- and Coldplay-inspired rockers.

“We want to be a big band, we want to play to as many people as possible – same as every other band – but we might as well hone our craft and sit on it for a while and get our songs legitimate before we … jump into anything,” Heppner says of the band’s decision to debut with an EP and not a full-length.

“There’s no rush.”

In August, the band will release a cassette featuring two older songs that won’t be on Mercy Street Choir.

Hope Atlantic’s attention to melody is striking, and considering the ages of its members, the band is already quite accomplished – particularly Heppner, who has no prior experience fronting a band.

They toured Ontario and Quebec earlier this year and have been approached by a few labels and management firms who are interested in working with them.

As they weigh their options, the one thing the band does know is that it wants to stand for something good.

“We want to push rock ‘n’ roll, we want to push real music,” Stevenson says. “I don’t think the big pop artists in our society should be pushing things like bling and cars and stuff like that. I really think that we should be talking about the problems (that are out there), or at least letting people know about them.” - Winnipeg Uniter