Cloud Cult - The Meaning of 8

Cloud Cult's upcoming The Meaning of 8 is the best album I've heard in more than a year.

The band flows and tumbles through 19 songs in little more than an hour. Throughout, the songwriting retains its urgency and carries the listener over the softer moments of the lesser tracks. Lead singer Craig Minowa demands, engages and ultimately engulfs your attention.)

The 2002 death of Minowa's two-year-old son serves as an emotional anchor to the songwriting, which he infuses with context and meaning. Despite subject matter so weighty, however, the band avoids a descent into pity by mixing in delightful story songs and electronic interludes.

The aural experience covers a range of beauty, from pretty to sad. Comparisons to both The Arcade Fire and Modest Mouse are obvious, but the band avoids mimicry by cultivating well-executed, elaborate orchestral melodies.

While Minowa's poignant lyrics about his son's death and its impact on his life serve as an emotional anchor, the storytelling songs provide this album's formidable depth. "The Deaf Girl's Song" deftly skewers the swill on the radio, as well as our inability to see the forest from the trees. Minowa accomplishes this with lyrics alternately playful and sardonic.

Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one who's song's gone number one?

Three minutes of silence on the radio is the best dang gift for everyone.

Did you hear about the deaf girl, the one who made everything clear?

If we could just shut up for a second, my darling, my dear, we might actually hear.

The Meaing of 8 has everything: A complex lyrical narrative; beautiful and dramatic music; and compelling individual songs which, together, craft a complex and sophisticated album. Well done.

Predicting the next big (indie) thing is too difficult given the whimsy of the genre and its fans. Whether Cloud Cult will break through is unclear, but based strength of The Meaning of 8, it is clear that whimsy is all that stands in their way.