The Pelican’s Perch

Speechless. That’s right, I said it. Speechless. Cloud Cult, who I thought were at the top of their game with their last release, The Meaning of 8, have somehow followed it up with an even better album. And I personally didn’t think that was possible.

…rest after the jump.

If you’re a frequent Perch reader, then you know I often commit all kinds of crimes of musical hyperbole with my exaggerated descriptions for the albums I love and statements like “If you like the Beatles, times their greatness by 15 and you’ve got (insert band’s name I currently love)”. But with this review, I’ll do my best to keep a level head while trying to describe what very well could end up being my #1 album of the year. It may sound crazy to say this early in the year, but I felt the same way about The Meaning of 8 and it ended up at #2 on the list. I said with Boris Yeltsin’s Pershing that if something came along and dethroned it from my top spot, it’d have to be one heck of an album, and not two weeks later Cloud Cult’s album is blasting as I sat at my computer smiling and shaking my head. So, two weeks from now will I be listening to something that tops Cloud Cult’s new album? Well, if that ends up happening, then I want to meet that band and shake their hands, because they will have created an album I’ll be listening to for years to come.

So what’s so fancy and great about Feel Good Ghosts that it’s got me all worked up? To start, take all the orchestration elements from their past album, which made me love them in the first place since that’s my jam right there, and double it for this new one. “When Water Comes to Life” has a minute and a half full orchestra intro. Are you kidding?! The intro dies down, Chris Minowa starts singing softly over the same full orchestra sound until everything just keeps getting louder and louder and the song ends after a huge full band rock-out session.

Besides that immediate shining example, the album both begins and ends perfectly. It begins with “No One Said It Would Be Easy”, which mixes a pulsing synth part with echoed piano in a very Cloud Cult sounding way, and just like “When Water Comes to Life”, the intro dies down to let the main verse come in, only to continue building until the drums, synth, piano, strings, guitar, and Minowa himself are all just going crazy. The end is just as perfect for the opposite reasons as “I Love You All” is a gentle ode from Minowa to his family and fans. The only line is “I love my mother/I love my father/When it’s my time to go/I need you to know/I love you all”. And the first half sounds like he’s singing through a vocoder, much like Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek”, then by the end the full orchestra is in full gear, there’s the whole band singing it, and the drums and guitar are all in epic mode. It’s probably the best ending to a Cloud Cult album yet.

There’s always a theme with every Cloud Cult album and this one is no different. The name is entirely appropriate as most songs talk about ghosts of all kinds in our lives, both good and bad. The ones from our past we can’t escape. The ghosts that watch over us every day. And even the concept that we “came up from the ground” and will “return back to the water from where we’re all born” as ghosts ourselves. I noticed a lot of lines are repeated throughout the album like the idea that we came from the ground from a million different pieces. That’s in a few songs. Ghosts are obviously all over the album, and life beginning and ending as water is a common theme as well.

Besides the amazing use of orchestra and equally amazing lyrics, which Minowa can always be counted on, most Cloud Cult cynics will find themselves pleasantly surprised to see that this new album is just under 40 minutes and is only 13 songs. Two of which are little instrumentals. I know a hand full of people that dislike Cloud Cult for falling into the Sufjan curse having almost 20 songs on both The Meaning of 8 and Advice from the Happy Hippo. I agree that is a bit excessive, but I never seemed to mind much since it was all usually good, which is a feat in itself releasing an album with nearly 20 songs and 95% of the album you don’t want to skip.

Feel Good Ghosts does have it’s share of strange songs, like any Cloud Cult album. “The Tornado Lessons” would be the prime example of a truly strange song, but I still really like it. The back-up vocals throughout the song are stolen straight from Alvin and the Chipmunks, almost like they were having too much fun playing with pitch shifting vocals in the studio and ended up just keeping some of it. “It’s What You Need” is a really short yell fest with the whole band rocking out for just over a minute yelling the title over and over. But as strange as those two songs may sound to read about, Minowa and the gang still make you want to listen to those on repeat too just because there’s strings all over them and crazy good drums.

And let’s talk about the drums on this new album too. I’ve always noticed they mixed real drums with computer beats in the most creative ways and I think this new one has my favorite drums yet. Whether it’s simple orchestral crashing drums, or glitched out drums that switch back and forth from speaker to speaker like in “Hurricane and Fire Survival Guide”, the drumming always impresses and is a major part to nearly every song and has always been a staple of Cloud Cult’s sound. Once my band gets in the studio here sometime soon to record, I have a good feeling we’ll end up being very Cloud Cult about it mixing my acoustic rock sound with eletronic elements, background vocals, and creative drums.

Someone told me the other night after having them listen to this new album that my songs sounded a lot like Cloud Cult if I went nuts adding strings and all that other stuff to my songs, and while I took that as a pretty good compliment, I couldn’t help but think that it probably was inevitable I’d have some Cloud Cult influence to my songs. I listen to their music so much, and Feel Good Ghosts isn’t doing anything favors either as it’s yet another addition to my Cloud Cult collection I love, slightly obsess over, and have everyone I know listening to it with me by the end of the day. It’s rare in my little indie music world inside my head to find a band that I consistently love release after release and Cloud Cult have become just that. I’ve gone back and re-read what I just wrote, since I usually just write stream of consciousness style with my posts, and the crimes of musical hyperbole are all over it, but what can you do? I love this band, and Feel Good Ghosts may end up being my favorite album of theirs yet.

Release date: April 8th on Earthology Records

1. “No One Said It Would Be Easy” *
2. “Everybody Here Is a Cloud” [mp3]
   
3. “The Tornado Lessons”
4. “When Water Comes to Life” [mp3]
   
5. “Must Explore”
6. “Journey of the Featherless” *
7. “The Ghost Inside Our House”
8. “It’s What You Need”
9. “Story of the Grandson of Jesus” *
10. “Hurricane and Fire Survival Guide” *
11. “May Your Hearts Stay Strong”
12. “The Will of a Volcano”
13. “Love You All”[mp3]
    

Official Site / Myspace / Pre-order the album
More at the hype machine

*recommended listens if you go the hype machine route