CLOUD CULT - The Meaning Of 8 Review

With its opening barrage of digital organicism, Cloud Cult's follow up to 2005's acclaimed and unfortunately named Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus sets about exemplifying the creative bloom of sound collage. While not necessarily directly in deed, primary songwriter Craig Minowa exhibits in spirit the high points of pop music's excesses; lines can be drawn from The Meaning of 8 to the old (Pixies, the heyday of the Elephant 6 collective) and the new (Arcade Fire, Dan Snaith's Manitoba/Caribou). Awkward vocals, oddball dynamics, weeping strings, dirty electronic flourishes, off-piste melodies - although it is all loosely, sometimes perilously darned together, everything is here to a certain degree and ultimately it all holds water....full text The sixth album for now-veteran indie-rockers Cloud Cult predictably pushes the envelope; not in a bad way. Rather, the Minnesota group offers another dense, rigorous musical journey that uses an idea as a springboard but, crucially, not as the end-all. In the case of The Meaning of 8, it’s the number in the title....full text If there are still a few bands who can keep selling records after the music industry's struggles with technology are all over, I hope Cloud Cult will be one. The Minnesota-based art-rockers make their recordings using geothermal energy and recycled materials, donate proceeds to environmentally friendly charities, and play concerts with an onstage painter. Their grand, unkempt indie rock is at once jam band, emo, and avant-garde. Their songs, born out of personal tragedy, are otherworldly lessons in being human....full text