Music Review // Takes an Army "Rise Up"

 

The sound of Takes an Army is an uplifting punk anthem on "Rise Up".   Somewhere between Talking Heads in the verses and Social Distortion in the chorus, this song is just one of those fun punk songs where you feel like you're taking that call to action but not in an angry way.  In fact, as this song feels positive the lyrics also reflect that as they say: "Anything but no complaints / Positivity, it won't bring me down".

As we dive into the lyrics on "Rise Up" it's about what the title says, with the lyrics: "Don't stand down / Just rise up / Rise up and you will love again".  There is very much that message in here about it not being how many times you get knocked, but how many times you get back up.  This is a definite jolt of positivity that anyone really could benefit from at any time because we've all been through those hard times where we've felt down.

The chorus also says "Take your plans / And throw 'em away / God's plan, it's the only way" which kind of threw me at first.  I feel like music shouldn't mix with things like religion because if you have the people who don't believe in God then you're already potentially isolating them as an audience and also it feels like this message could be made without that line being in there.  But that line is really the only part of the song that mentions God, so if you're not into religion or whatever then you can easily look past it.

In the year 2025, I think we can all admit that we need more positivity.  If you look at the news, every day it just seems like things are getting worse and worse.  Now I'm not saying that this song will lead people to become religious and start going to church (though it might), but I think it is important because it can lead people to something.  This song can give people some hope and some faith and whatever that is in, we can at least keep our heads up and keep going.