Someday, Cloud Cult's adenoidal ringleader Craig Minowa will be confronted with the concept of "schadenfreude." And it will confuse and frighten him. Because, while the blissed out art-rocker does aching sincerity the same way Belgium does chocolate, he simply does not traffic in the kind of work-a-day bitterness that most of us take for granted (or, in the case of Radar staffers, as a job qualification). Consider this: his Minnesota-based band recorded their last album, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) using geo-thermal power, donated the proceeds to enviro-charities, and performed with onstage interpretive painters. Oh, also: pretty much every song was a shattered elegy to Minowa's deceased infant son. Good times.

But this is not to say that the Cloud Cult's latest offering is one that will grate on the ears of the average, irony-damaged Radar reader. Anyone able to make it past the album's awful title and cover-art (which both seem lifted from Alice in Wonderland fan-fiction) will find a line-up of incandescent, epic, pop gems that swell to massive, string-heavy climaxes—sort of like the Arcade Fire, but with more lithium. With a focused sense of psychedelica that manages to get suitably Yoshimi Battles Pink Robots without veering into "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," and a truly earned sense of melancholy (see: infant, deceased), Minowa spins a 13 song confection to win over even the most sarcastic of haters.