Light Chasers stands as the eighth proper album from Cloud Cult, a band too eccentric to classify in any one genre. It also stands as the culmination of the past eight years in the lives of Craig and Connie Minowa, the band's lead singer/songwriter and on-stage painter, respectively. Their journey has been marked by the recent birth of their son Nova—a name that is indicative of just how eccentric the band is.
Much of the material drawn on for past albums had been the grieving of the unexplainable death of the couple's son Kaidin in 2002. For the six years afterwards Cloud Cult lived a frenzied schedule: pumping out full-length albums yearly and touring constantly. The energy couldn't last forever, and following 2008's Feel Good Ghosts, Cloud Cult began a self-imposed hiatus that seemed to find Craig and Connie beginning their lives again.
This new album finds the birth of Nova offering a much more positive feel to Cloud Cult's message than had previous existed. Nowhere is this more visible than ""The Birth,"" in which Craig declares, ""like a candle, you were meant to share the fire ... you were born to change this life / you were born to chase the light."" The anguish that existed so plainly on earlier albums has been grappled with since then, and has been converted into a message that the album sends of embracing both the pains and the joys of life. On ""The Invocation p.1: You'll Be Bright, the Cult demonstrate acquiescence for all aspects of our journeys as they implore, ""every first kiss, every crisis, every heartbreak and every act of kindness / they're calling your name / travel safely.""
In a personal interview last spring, Craig described the hiatus as a time that has allowed him to arrange his music much more than in the past. As opposed to previous albums, when he would mostly map out the songs in the studio, Craig said that this time around he ""started the writing process on pad and paper ... this is the first album where I've done that."" This is actually apparent from the consistent themes throughout the album, as well as the intricate arrangements behind some of the longest tracks Cloud Cult has ever produced. On Light Chasers, they often move from one mood to another within the same song, and the band's sound avoids being repetitive or monotonous.
Despite the hiatus, new child, and new composing style, Light Chasers picks up sonically where Feel Good Ghosts left off. Cloud Cults trajectory has consistently moved from their raw roots towards a more recent electro-orchestral sound. They Live On the Sun and Aurora Borealis contained painful snapshots of the couple's agony, after which their rock-like Advice from the Happy Hippopotamus became extremely popular. Light Chasers makes stronger use of the band's string section, horn section and piano as the undertone for Craig's unique voice than on previous albums. This has the effect of a gentler tone that agrees with and compliments the positive message the group has taken on.
Cloud Cult is far from a pop band, but this album has more potential for popular appeal than anything they have made in the past. They still unveil the rock-guitar sound on songs such as ""Today We Give Ourselves to the Fire"" and parts of ""Blessings (Invocation p.2)"" but it is within the scope of their electro-orchestral base.
Whereas previous albums were often deemed too strange for popular audiences to embrace, in Light Chasers, Cloud Cult has finally made the album for the masses—even if that's not what they set out to do.
