Tears roll down my cheek. I wipe them. The album is on repeat. Listen 11 and the sobs continue. Contrarily, I am elated. Cloud Cult's 5th official album, The Meaning of 8 is another impressive effort. The Minneapolis based band have somehow pulled off another album that centers on our mortality.
This is the bands fourth record since singer and main songwriter Craig Minowa's 2-year-old son, Kaidan, suddenly and inexplicably died in 2002. For many bands-especially one that was in it’s infancy-this may have signaled the end. But, Minowa has turned his torment into raw musical emotion.
2003's indie-classic They Live on the Sun, the first after Kaidan's death, is an album full of despair, confusion and pain. In the years and records since, watching Minowa's songwriting blossom from completely mad-yet genius, to coping to almost acceptance, has been like watching a close friend struggle with such a tragedy. He has laid his life out for us and permitted us to cry with him.
An album that brings tears is certainly uncommon. Cloud Cult has had us weeping for 4 consecutive albums. We are not allowed to forget Kaidan because Minowa is incapable.
On The Meaning of 8, the heartache is still ostensibly present, yet somehow the mood has changed from solemn and gloomy to joyful and ethereal. Oddly, Minowa has found comfort in a number.
The meaning of 8 is a link to our unconscious human connection. The symbol 8, throughout time, has had similar spiritual, religious, cultural and mythological meanings all over the globe. Minowa has become obsessed with the number.
Not coincidentally, Kaidan would have been 8 years old around this time (Track 7 is titled “Your 8th Birthday).
There are many stand out tracks on this album, “Chemicals Collide”, is a melodic and confused love song that can whirl around your head for days. “Pretty Voice” hums along with typical Cloudcult imagery, bashful birds singing hermit songs and a “hero-girl”. But it is track 8, “Dance for the Dead” that speaks loudest in summary, “This is the dance that brings the dead to the living/Just say ‘I miss you everyday, you know’”.
Yes, this album is full of the pain Minowa has felt each day since his loss and it is converted to more great songs. Yet this time we are comforted as well.
On “Purpose” Minowa sings, “There must be purpose here cuz most of us keep waking up”.
Amazingly, The Meaning of 8 searches for purpose in life and comes pretty damn close to finding it. |