Upon first meeting the members of Twelve Canons, one might assume they meet all the criteria that must be met to be in a band these days — long hair, tight thrift store T-shirts and an unabashedly honest creed that everything is done solely “for the music.”

But after spending some time with the decidedly local band and laughing along with them as they tear down these clich‚s, it would be wrong to make snap judgments.

The band, composed of members of defunct local outfits — or at least partially defunct local outfits, in the case of the on-again, off-again Senator Kelly — are wary to describe their sound for fear of pigeonholing themselves. It’s not that they want to sound pretentious, insists bassist David Yoshimura, senior in English, but rather, he is “honestly unable to compare [our sound] to anyone else.”

When forced to describe the sound, drummer and violist Sam Gold is silent for a while. However, after a taking a minute to think, Gold thinks he has the answer.

“My manager at work called it ‘white boy jazz.'”

The three bandmates laugh. The fourth band member, Alex “The Body” Body, lives in Iowa City and is the newest addition.

The group came together in 1999 when guitarist Jim Durocher, freshman in LAS-open option, and Yoshimura began playing small shows around town. Gold was added in 2001 and Body rounded out the foursome a year later.

Like virtually all bands, the group has had its fair share of bumps along the road. Last year, the band played a show in Nebraska where the sound engineer was arrested before the show. When asked what the man was arrested for, the band clams up.

“He got arrested for something,” Gold says, then is silent again.

“Probably killed somebody,” Durocher says, and the band laughs.

Mysterious arrests notwithstanding, the Canons are doing much better these days, with a recording stint at local label BiFi Records in progress. The album, expected to have around eight songs, will have a limited run, Durocher says, and will only have around 75 copies to start.

“But more can always be made,” Yoshimura says.

As to what the album will sound like, again the band is loathe to describe their music.

“I often like to imagine people stripping to it,” Durocher says.

The other members of the band join in, and descriptive terms such as “dark folk” and “closet goth” are thrown around.

“To draw an analogy, we go from a panda, to a monkey, then to a sea cucumber,” Durocher says. “See how all those things are unrelated? That is our music.”

Who: Twelve Canons, Theodore Dolorean

Where: Vaudeville Mews, 212 4th St., Des Moines

When: 9 p.m., Friday

Cost: $5