For all of about six seconds, the Quad Cities band Bedroom Shrine's new album No DéjàVu seems content to set a mood.
The first sound on "Brown Recluse" is the whirring of a tape machine, whose unsteadiness makes the opening notes of acoustic guitar tremble plaintively.
But before that old-time folk vibe can register, the wind chimes tinkle softly, leading to some gentle feedback that builds to the simultaneous entrance (at the 19-second mark) of hand claps and electric slide guitar. Those two elements pull against each other, the hand claps establishing a pleasant groove with the acoustic guitar while the slide concisely articulates its grudge.
The instrumental is clearly meant as a table-setter, but it illustrates that Bedroom Shrine has no interest in dawdling. At all of 85 seconds, the track musically sketches out the band's Facebook blurb of "rock 'n' roll gets lonesome" and scurries off.
That's the basic method of the album, whose 12 songs run a total of 32 minutes. That by itself means nothing, but it relates to both the album's charm and its shortcoming: The vivid, sharply drawn songs leave you wanting more (good!), but they also feel like sketches that would be even better given the time and space to grow into more-mature form (less good!). It's telling that the only two songs that run more than three minutes - "You're Gonna Lose" and the title track - feel most like they've reached the ends of their natural lives.