Definition of Aof

AOF may stand for:

• French West Africa (Afrique occidentale française), a group of Francophone countries in West Africa.
• Alexisonfire a Canadian Post-Hardcore Band.
• Articles of Faith, a hardcore punk band from Chicago.
• Avon Old Farms School, an all-boys boarding high school in Avon, CT.
• Art of Fighting, a Japanese video game.

Articles of Faith were a highly influential Chicago based hardcore punk band (1981-1985) notable for song-writing in a class above most of their contemporaries (and successors). The band's later work, the posthumous In This Life LP in particular, either founds or foreshadows the emo amd emocore sound. The typical AoF song featured hummable melodies and conspicuous hooks, showing funk, reggae and jazz influences, accompanied by lyrics bemoaning the difficulty of finding freedom and fulfillment in a cookie-cutter mass-consumption driven society, typically but not always, delivered at a searing pace. While the band's influence was blunted by being based in Chicago, they maintained close musical and thematic ties to the Washington DC / Dischord Records scene. Drummer Virus X briefly left the band in 1984, due to the relative waning of the band's political emphasis, but returned to record In This Life.