The accidental death of Craig Minowa's infant son
in 2002 has understandably dominated his songwriting. It's fair to say that the
tragedy is the key to understanding his music, including Cloud Cult's sixth
disc, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes). But he very rarely deals
with it by being maudlin or excessively dark; rather than brooding, he deals
with his grief by using it to explore more universal themes about the fragility
and beauty of life, the importance of love, and finding peace amid devastation.
Ghosts—self-released on Minowa's environmentally
conscious label—finds the Minnesota band more vibrant and creative than
ever, surpassing last year's The Meaning Of 8 with even lusher
orchestration that draws on classical, electronica, folk, and Flaming
Lips-esque indie-rock. Though it's an extended meditation on mortality that
includes the declaration "There's so much more to see in the darkest places," Ghosts sounds surprisingly
innocent and joyful; where The Polyphonic Spree's optimism sometimes seems
creepily facile, for Cloud Cult, it seems like hard-earned wisdom. At its
highest points, it approaches transcendence, as on "When Water Comes To Life,"
which turns a description of a child's autopsy into a heartbreakingly lyrical
statement of what's left after we die: water, sand, and memories.