Cloud Cult

Cloud Cult has taken on more polish and windy orchestration over the past few years, keeping touch with the genuine, ambitious yearning that leader Craig Minowa used to channel through a more chaotic patchwork. The raw, electronic-leaning production of 2005’s Advice From The Happy Hippopotamus is all but gone on 2008’s Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying Through Tornadoes), but neither this nor an increase in popularity has dragged the band down into music-industry silliness. Minowa dives in with typical gusto on Cloud Cult’s latest, Light Chasers, building the album into a sprawling, intricately interconnected concept that often soars into operatic, cathartic heights.

Updated 05/09/2011