Raised Fist – Dedication

As I pop in Raised Fist‘s third album, Dedication, a powerful hardcore punk sound comes blasting through my speakers. Straight from song 1 (Get This Right!) to song 11 (Between The Demons), there is a never ending flow of hard vocals, riffs and beats. The lyrics are incredibly powerful, and incredibly different. Instead of complaining about girls and other stuff, they talk about MP3s, selling out, only playing to get noticed, war and murder, and so much more! Powerful lyrics, backed up by powerful tunes, make this an amazingly powerful album.

Opening the album is Get This Right!, which is one of my favorites, they ripe right into your mind, just blowing you away and getting you prepared for the rest of the album. It is a song about being in a band for the fun of it, and the enjoyment, not profit or money (like a lot of bands are these days) not getting a record label, cool websites, nice reviews, just having dedication and playing for the sake of playing. The beat is amazing, and they display their talent in this song, Starting off with a drum beat then getting into the song, keeping a steady, fast beat up to around 1 minute, then it slows down and they make a slow rising tune, which fills you with anticipation.

That’s Why, the shortest song, clocking in at 1:37, comes second. It is an amazing fast song, with a lot of feelings. They then slow it down with Message Behind Contempt. This song once again displays the wonderful talent these 5 guys have.

Also on the album, there is a song called Disable Me, with a small amount of lyrics, and being the longest song on the album, it is tied for my favorite song with track 8, Dedication. The first of the two begins with a small metallic sound then opens into a long heavy beat right before stopping all together and restarting with the lyrics along with it. It is full of amazing vocals, which get imprinted into your mind, and great tunes, I just love it. There is also an amazing solo/duet thing right smack in the middle of the song. Now for the latter of the two. It is an incredibly fast paced song, with some very powerful lyrics, walking on the edge of sell outs, and MP3 sharing, they are just fantastic. “Let me dedicate this song to those who downloaded this song as a MP3” are some of the final lyrics in the song, and I find them quite interesting. Mostly because I downloaded the song as a MP3 form epitaph.com before I got the album. They also go through and say some other people in which they think deserve dedication for staying true to their roots and just being you. Those two are my favorite songs on the album.

Now, I’ve only talked about maybe half of the songs on the album, but don’t let that fool you. NOT ONE song is a disappointment. But don’t take my word for it, go get the album and listen to it and form your own opinions.