Dull, numbing and penetrating, Minutes to Burn may have sounded sharper ten or fifteen years ago. But the days of Alice In Chains and Days of the New are long gone, and this just sounds flat.

More than three chords per five-song EP aren't always the required formula for stimulating music, but it might have helped in this case. When you literally can't tell the difference between tracks one, two and three, it's high time to add a little variety.

Stale drumbeats and stolid melodies finally relent late in track four ("Message"), but the relief is short-lived and all but forgotten by the time the band finally makes its way to the end of the album, closing with the murky "Atom Bomb".

The band apparently has minutes to burn, namely by wasting their time playing music so stale and stagnant. Unfortunately, this reviewer doesn't have time to waste listening to it.

A. Koledin