Best song: The Arrival: There’s So Much Energy In Us
Worst song: The Departure: Today We Give Ourselves To The
Fire
Overall grade: 5
I’d hazard a guess that Cloud Cult are a band you have not
heard of. (Unless you requested this review, of course.) They’re very
independent, and it’s completely through choice – although they’ve had some
very highly regarded albums and several offers from major record labels,
they’ve made the decision to remain out of the spotlight, in order to focus on
such things as helping the environment (this is the same reason they never tour
outside of the US.)
The album as a whole skips in a carefree way between dream
pop, indie rock and something slightly experimental. Legend has it (well,
Wikipedia) that some of their previous albums focused more on the experimental
aspect, meaning they basically managed to sell out while remaining completely
underground – something of an achievement. I believe this is also technically a
concept album, but that’s pretty much restricted to the story, as I don’t hear
anything in the music that ties any of the songs together, although some of the
transitions are well done.
But taken as individuals, a lot of the songs are pretty
fantastic. The opening is spacey, ethereal and subtly majestic, bringing to mind
a funeral procession for a highly respected public figure. The moment when the
drums come in is a bit clumsy and unexpected, but I’m over it by the time the
violins join the proceedings and add an orchestral feel.
The vocals are good, if a little unconventional. Maybe this
song would have been on the next Neutral Milk Hotel album if they’d stuck
around. But my favourite part of this song is the dark, tribal instrumental
section that occupies the last minute or so.
So we had a good start, but sadly ‘Today We Give Ourselves
To The Fire’ doesn’t match up. The not quite in unison voices are really
grating and although I think it’s trying to be inspirational with its rising
melodies and hand claps, but I don’t feel inspired at all. It’s an unwelcome
distraction between the opener and ‘You’ll Be Bright’, which has a funky
hand-drawn music video that you should watch. It’s the prototypical indie rock
song, starting with minimal backing and high mixed vocals before transitioning
into something harder with more balance between these elements. If you like
that kind of thing, this is a good one.
‘You Were Born’ sounds, on first listen, like a very pretty but not very exciting acoustic
song, but reveals itself to be a little different on subsequent listens. For
example, the piano is doing some pretty clever fiddly stuff in the background,
and the violin solo in the middle turns out to be a winner. It’s nothing like its
weird followup ‘The Exploding People’ which is distorted and detached. It feels
like I’m running for my life away from… something. Still has a great hook
though in ‘one by one the people they explode…’
I LOVE the chaos that rules over the opening to ‘Room Full
Of People In My Head’, and some of the lyrics are pretty clever too: ‘Part of
me is the hangman looking for a scapegoat’. It becomes less schizophrenic after
the initial blow but it’s still notable for being the hardest rocking track (is
there such a genre as indie metal?)
‘Running With The Wolves’ could just as easily have been a
Soft Bulletin-era Flaming Lips song, and it has that same protective layer of
production that wraps up the song and kind of separates it from the outside
world. ‘Responsible’ has a lot of weight to it, and seems to be the moment of
the story where the main character, whoever he/she is, finally grows up and
realises they can’t keep running away from their mistakes, so I guess it’s a
transition piece, but musically it doesn’t do anything that can’t be found on
the early songs – I much prefer the claustrophobic, enclosed ‘The Guessing Game’.
At the end, highlights include the intimate whisper of ‘Dawn’…
forget it. That’s a good song and all, but closer ‘There’s So Much Energy In Us’,
which overshadows everything within a three song radius. Here, the pretentious
titles and false builds found elsewhere come to a head in the purge of
negativity that feels like a ritual song, a call to do good things. And the
title line really is sung with an impressive amount of energy. It’s the kind of
song that just climbs higher and higher and never seems to stop, reaching up as
far as the sun.
So in a sense, there is a path you can follow through this
album, but it’s not one of musical themes, it’s one of emotional themes. At the
start, things are more relaxed and content, but they pick up the pace into fear
and restlessness, and then slowly seem to come round to acceptance and then to
something that’s almost like rejoicing. I also don’t think it’s too hard to
broadly categorise each track into ‘dream’ or ‘nightmare’, so maybe it’s about
the contrast between those two things as well.
I think I might work backwards with this band, just to be
contrary. I am interested to hear their earlier stuff and see their raw and
experimental side take a turn in the limelight. Hopefully, that won’t cause
them to lose their moments of odd beauty that are what attracts me to this
record.
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