If you haven’t felt assaulted enough these days by battling traffic, long days, and being over stressed, then I highly recommend “Humansize,” the newest CD from Helsinki group Echo Is Your Love. Describing a band as “assaulting” may be offensive to some bands, but Echo Is Your Love would probably be pleased with the comment, as that does seem to be their intention. “Humansize” is the fourth album from Echo Is Your Love, and it is filled with punk rock, lippy indie attitude that will leave you desperate for headache relief pills all week. The songs are aggressive, and unapologetic for being so. The lead singer has an essence of an unpolished “Cranberries” lead singer Dolores O'Riordan (Burton), in her voice.



For about two thirds of the song, the pelt of Rock ‘N Roll meeting mad chaos emanates, but then on the last section, the songs tend to digress into sheer insanity. The songs are quite good until it sounds like a dumpy two year old got its pudgy mitts on the electric guitar. Then on other songs, sounds appear to be transmitting onto the tracks like “No Angels in America” where I suspect communications with aliens has occurred (alert the U.S.A, ASAP!). “No Angels In America” is a really beautiful, track until the spiral downwards, which results in the next song “Minor Flirt” being caustic, aggressive, and flaying, thank goodness it only lasts 1 minute and 15 seconds. I really enjoyed the catchy tune “The City And The Dark Age” and “Sharp Things,” which sounded ideal for a mosh pit. I suspect Echo Is Your Love would be a great band to see perform onstage, as the music would send you into a blissful frenzy. As the collection progressed, the songs seemed to be more and more enjoyable, but overall it was a hard CD to listen to because of its freehand style of electric guitar playing when ending a song.



Consider Yourself No Longer A Part Of The Furniture

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30

Peace Song

Three Ropes

No Angels In America

Minor Flirt

Step In Step Aside

The City And The Dark Age

Sharp Things

Stories You Feared