Cloud Cult’s new album Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) begins with the track "No One Said It Would Be Easy.” It is a bouncy, acoustic guitar driven tune that opens as one would expect a Cloud Cult song would: with a mess of instruments and programming formulating something that feels organic, yet displaced from another planet. Within it you will find the lyrics "You’re a pretty human being.” Words that if just about any other artist sung them—even in the gorgeous melody that singer Craig Minowa does—wouldn’t work.
John Lennon could do it. So could Stevie Wonder, and maybe a handful others. Craig Minowa can do it as well.
He makes it sound easy because his voice allows for a trust between artist and listener. Something that is not a simple accomplishment for an indie rock singer.
Yet this is not a typical indie rock band. Minowa heads a troupe that includes painters Connie Minowa (Craig’s wife) and Scott West, cellist Sarah Young, violinist Shannon Frid, bassist Shawn Neary, and drummer Arlen Peiffer.
Yes, you read that correctly, “painters.” These artists create the album covers for each recording and during the bands live show stand on stage and paint whatever the music allows them. Each night a new canvas fills in magnificently before the eyes of the audience.
And if you asked the musicians in the band, the visual art created during their live show is just as important as the bass and the drums.
No, this is not at all a typical band. There is so much to Cloud Cult than what is on the surface; from the dance-glazed indie rock to the passionate contemplative Minowa-n lyrics (which tend to focus on the premature death of his son Kaidin) to their eco-friendly production (the band will plant 10 trees for each 1,000 CD units sold), they are easy to love.
Feel Good Ghosts is the band’s eighth record in as many years and as hard as it is to say about such an amazing act, it’s not as easy to love as their past efforts have been.
The band hasn’t failed here, yet the upward progression that began with 2000’s Who Killed Puck has undoubtedly begun it’s decline.
The wackiness of their earlier recordings still abounds, but it hides deeper than in the past. The band is growing up but not growing. The song “Everybody Here Is a Cloud,” though haunting and cerebral, lacks the playfulness of the easily comparable “Chemicals Collide” from last years The Meaning of 8. “Journey of the Featherless” adds electronica to the equation again, but seemingly never lets it all out.
One album highlight comes on “When Water Comes to Life” where we tiptoe through a world of Minowa’s pain once again. On this track, which is full of beautiful orchestration, he sings “Underneath your ribs/they’ll find a heart shaped locket/an old photograph of you in daddy’s arms.” We are reminded of the unbearable loss he faces each day. It seems he will never write enough songs about his son, and we accept that.
We also accept the band’s lack of classification. On Feel Good Ghosts the Minnesotans remain difficult to place in any one genre—from folk to electronica, from indie to jam band influences.
On the album closer “Love You All,” we hear these different styles meshing with Minowa’s voice, which is masked with electronic effects. He sings, “I love my mother/I love my father/When it’s my time to go/I need you to know.” By the song’s end he ditches the mask and sings in his real voice, begging us all to say what we feel.
The album recovers at its end and the band’s attempted rebirth is noted, but as Cloud Cult has taught us over the years, all things come to an end in this life. Quite possibly this recording marks the end for Cloud Cult, as rumors of the band’s demise follow them and sonically they have begun recycling. But this is still a decent collection of songs that remind us of another lesson we have learned from Minowa and friends: be grateful for what you have. Let’s enjoy Cloud Cult for what they are while they’re still here, there’s still not many bands like them left.
|