It’s difficult to hear the lush, emotionally powerful music of Cloud Cult without feeling the sense of heartache pulsing beneath. Founder Craig Minowa’s music is layered with endless shades of sadness, even though Cloud Cult songs often soar and surge with a heavenly beauty. The title may be a clue about Minowa’s healing progress: there is a ray of feel-good lightness in Feel Good Ghosts, especially on tracks like the lovely, airy “Everybody Here Is A Cloud,” the glass-half-full “Journey of the Featherless” (“my heart’s still beating/guess I’m pretty lucky...”), and the folksy, sweet “The Ghost Inside Our House.” While there's still plenty of bittersweet musing on life, love and death (it’s easy to well up listening to “When Water Comes to Life”), Feel Good Ghosts finds fresh ways of expressing both grief and hope; “The Tornado Lessons” is a whimsical and artful outing, and one imagines the carefree whistling and handclaps of “It’s What You Need” to be the pink lipstick on a sardonic response to unsolicited advice from the well-meaning. Fans of the Flaming Lips and Starlight Mints will find many delights in this marvelous band.