Imaginative. Stunning. Original. Outstanding. It’s probably more likely that I’d use these words to describe the chicken sandwich I had for lunch, or the phone call I had with my mother when she told me that the student loan folks underestimated my payments. Fat chance that I’ll apply them Dwindle’s Days Away. Instead of words, I’ll use the oldest convention of a symbolic succession of letters: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Even I can’t admit that I’m being unjustly harsh. Days Away ambles along like it wants to be a bad Pavement album (which most bands should strive for), but instead sounds like a Bush album produced a bottle of Valium. Sure, the three piece of Jeff, John, and Brooce (we’ll leave it at that since they we weren’t given last names on the liner notes, possibly to sustain anonymity, which shouldn’t be a problem) have a full enough sound, but being lost in complete sound doesn’t make one. “Unheard and Unseen” definitely has some shape and a genuine sense of feeling, but so does Spam.

The songs go nowhere…slowly. There is a slumberly, poorly hypnotic feel that guides every song into utter indifference. The guitar riffs and melodies seem to be stolen from the song before, and the nameless vocalist (Jeff, John and Brooce are only assigned drums, bass, and guitar) whines like his puppy just got run over by a bus, or a bayonette is poking into his back and prodding him to sing. In fact, the album plays a series of Danielle Steele novels read: sure, the words are a little different, but it’s all the same thing.

Hopefully, the next job interview is only days away, because it would be hard to believe that stardom is even on this year’s calendar.