Artist: Bagheera
Album: Twelves
Label: Asian Man
Tracks: 13
Length: 33:24
Review by: Mike “Hellboy” Leech

Bagheera is an “alright” band in every sense of the word. They’re alright musicians, they have alright voices and they play alright music. They’re certainly not bad by any means, but they aren’t necessarily that good either. Twelves is the debut album from Heather Dallape and Theodore Moll, the St. Louis twosome of multi-instrumentalists. Their album’s thirteen tracks are a layered blend of male/female vocal harmonies, bouncy, post punk guitar riffs and electronic blips and bloops.

About a third of the tracks on Twelves seem more like experiments than they do songs. Sometimes these work fairly well like on the very Built to Spillish instrumental “The Halloween Disguise”, but some like “Shape vs. Concentration (Within a Vacuum)” become monotonous fast and don’t really go anywhere in the end. A few of the record’s more catchy and inventive tracks include “Long Division”, “Bulbchanger” and “Admission/Concession”. The rest leave a little to be desired. Twelves is an alright debut from an alright band, but it’s so close to being good that it almost hurts. Hopefully Bagheera will let loose a little more of their obvious creative potential and next time create an album more in line with what they’re capable of... something much better than just alright.