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2LP
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ITR 384LP
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Double LP version. "Meatbodies' latest undertaking and borderline lost album, Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom, is their most varied and realized work to date. It's a melodic, hook-filled rock epic in which frontman and lead guitarist Chad Ubovich faces the trials of sobriety, redemption, reinvention while literally learning to walk and play again. Resurrection not only accompanies the record, but its production as well, Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom examines themes surrounding love and loss, escapism, defeatism, hedonism, psychedelics and much more. By 2017, Ubovich had reached a crossroads. After years of increasingly insane shows playing to heaving crowds with an ever-evolving and rotating door of personnel, fatigue had taken its toll and he realized another change was on the horizon. Retreating to the seedy Los Angeles underbelly -- in search of meaning and a reset -- he escaped into that world, ignoring his own well-being, trying to forget his successes. It was at this point that Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom began to take shape -- a project built by a man searching for new beginnings and his own sense of self. After sobering up, sessions began with longtime collaborator Dylan Fujioka. However, due to discrepancies with the studio, tensions were high and the plug was pulled. And as the world took a back seat, so did the idea of Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom. Not wanting to sit still at home, Ubovich began to comb through his previous demos, and, with that, 333 was born, the now de facto third Meatbodies album. Yet Flora was never far from Ubovich's mind. When restrictions started to lift, Ubovich headed to Gold Diggers Sound in Los Angeles, backed by engineer Ed McEntee and a team of colleagues and friends, and completed the final act to the album. It recalls the searing Blue Cheer-meets-Iggy Pop-with-psychedelia that permeated previous releases, but adds new elements of shoegaze, classic alternative, Britpop, drone, and hints of country. Simultaneously an ode to '80s LA punk and the rise of indie/alternative music in the U.K., it plays like a radio station broadcasting from the void."
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CD
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ITR 384CD
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"Meatbodies' latest undertaking and borderline lost album, Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom, is their most varied and realized work to date. It's a melodic, hook-filled rock epic in which frontman and lead guitarist Chad Ubovich faces the trials of sobriety, redemption, reinvention while literally learning to walk and play again. Resurrection not only accompanies the record, but its production as well, Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom examines themes surrounding love and loss, escapism, defeatism, hedonism, psychedelics and much more. By 2017, Ubovich had reached a crossroads. After years of increasingly insane shows playing to heaving crowds with an ever-evolving and rotating door of personnel, fatigue had taken its toll and he realized another change was on the horizon. Retreating to the seedy Los Angeles underbelly -- in search of meaning and a reset -- he escaped into that world, ignoring his own well-being, trying to forget his successes. It was at this point that Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom began to take shape -- a project built by a man searching for new beginnings and his own sense of self. After sobering up, sessions began with longtime collaborator Dylan Fujioka. However, due to discrepancies with the studio, tensions were high and the plug was pulled. And as the world took a back seat, so did the idea of Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom. Not wanting to sit still at home, Ubovich began to comb through his previous demos, and, with that, 333 was born, the now de facto third Meatbodies album. Yet Flora was never far from Ubovich's mind. When restrictions started to lift, Ubovich headed to Gold Diggers Sound in Los Angeles, backed by engineer Ed McEntee and a team of colleagues and friends, and completed the final act to the album. It recalls the searing Blue Cheer-meets-Iggy Pop-with-psychedelia that permeated previous releases, but adds new elements of shoegaze, classic alternative, Britpop, drone, and hints of country. Simultaneously an ode to '80s LA punk and the rise of indie/alternative music in the U.K., it plays like a radio station broadcasting from the void."
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CD
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ITR 361CD
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"Over the course of the decade, Meatbodies' Chad Ubovich has been a perennial candidate for MVP of West Coast's fertile rock scene. The LA native could be seen peeling off guitar solos in Mikal Cronin's backing band, supplying the Sabbath-sized low end for Ty Segall and Charlie Moothart as the bassist for Fuzz, and, of course, fronting his own Meatbodies. Today the recently dormant experimental noise/freak-rock outfit has announced their return with 333 -- a corrosive stew of guitar scuzz, raw acoustic rave-ups, and primitive electronics that charts Ubovich's journey from drug-induced darkness to clear-eyed sobriety. 333 simultaneously reflects on how the world he re-entered was still pretty messed up -- if not more so. 'These lyrics are dark, but I think these are things that a lot of people are feeling and going through' he says. 'Here in America, we're watching the fall of U.S. capitalism, and 333 is a cartoonish representation of that decline.' In mid to late 2019, the band -- Ubovich and drummer Dylan Fujioka -- had a new album in the can, ready to be mixed. But when COVID hit, like so many other artists, they put their release on hold as they rode out the pandemic's first wave. During that idle time, Ubovich discovered a cache of demos that he and Fujioka had recorded in a bedroom back in the summer of 2018, and he really liked what he heard. In contrast to Meatbodies' typical full-band attack, it was deliriously disordered. 'It sounded gross, like a scary Magical Mystery Tour,' he recalls proudly. After subjecting them to some mixing-board freakery, Ubovich fast-tracked the songs into becoming this third release of theirs, 333. It proves Meatbodies have greatly expanded their palette, opening new portals to explore. And for an album that wasn't supposed to exist, 333 is the ultimate testament to Meatbodies' renewed vitality."
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LP
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ITR 361LP
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LP version. "Over the course of the decade, Meatbodies' Chad Ubovich has been a perennial candidate for MVP of West Coast's fertile rock scene. The LA native could be seen peeling off guitar solos in Mikal Cronin's backing band, supplying the Sabbath-sized low end for Ty Segall and Charlie Moothart as the bassist for Fuzz, and, of course, fronting his own Meatbodies. Today the recently dormant experimental noise/freak-rock outfit has announced their return with 333 -- a corrosive stew of guitar scuzz, raw acoustic rave-ups, and primitive electronics that charts Ubovich's journey from drug-induced darkness to clear-eyed sobriety. 333 simultaneously reflects on how the world he re-entered was still pretty messed up -- if not more so. 'These lyrics are dark, but I think these are things that a lot of people are feeling and going through' he says. 'Here in America, we're watching the fall of U.S. capitalism, and 333 is a cartoonish representation of that decline.' In mid to late 2019, the band -- Ubovich and drummer Dylan Fujioka -- had a new album in the can, ready to be mixed. But when COVID hit, like so many other artists, they put their release on hold as they rode out the pandemic's first wave. During that idle time, Ubovich discovered a cache of demos that he and Fujioka had recorded in a bedroom back in the summer of 2018, and he really liked what he heard. In contrast to Meatbodies' typical full-band attack, it was deliriously disordered. 'It sounded gross, like a scary Magical Mystery Tour,' he recalls proudly. After subjecting them to some mixing-board freakery, Ubovich fast-tracked the songs into becoming this third release of theirs, 333. It proves Meatbodies have greatly expanded their palette, opening new portals to explore. And for an album that wasn't supposed to exist, 333 is the ultimate testament to Meatbodies' renewed vitality."
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CD
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ITR 298CD
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"With Alice, Meatbodies return ascending toward ground level. A 'heavy-pop' concept, metal on molly. Chad Ubovich, Patrick Nolan, and Kevin Boog step out in new form, soaring through diverse stories, tones, and characters. Dancing between quiet and loud, funk and doom, pop and noise. Their message preached is celestial and deafening, a sacred scripture for today's world: a warbling Rhodes piano, a liquefying electric guitar, a ghostly synthesizer skating across the sands of a twelve-stringed acoustic. The band digs deep into the rich soils of Earth to reveal the chaotic sensual vibrations underneath the fields we walk upon. Connecting our limbs, our mouths, our consciousness to the microcosms of the grime, all while being lit by black light. Captured wriggling and alive in San Francisco by Ubovich and Eric Bauer at The Bauer Mansion, this album is a step in the right direction, a new direction, a new way of thinking. Watching the futures, watching the world burn."
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LP
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ITR 298LP
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LP version. "With Alice, Meatbodies return ascending toward ground level. A 'heavy-pop' concept, metal on molly. Chad Ubovich, Patrick Nolan, and Kevin Boog step out in new form, soaring through diverse stories, tones, and characters. Dancing between quiet and loud, funk and doom, pop and noise. Their message preached is celestial and deafening, a sacred scripture for today's world: a warbling Rhodes piano, a liquefying electric guitar, a ghostly synthesizer skating across the sands of a twelve-stringed acoustic. The band digs deep into the rich soils of Earth to reveal the chaotic sensual vibrations underneath the fields we walk upon. Connecting our limbs, our mouths, our consciousness to the microcosms of the grime, all while being lit by black light. Captured wriggling and alive in San Francisco by Ubovich and Eric Bauer at The Bauer Mansion, this album is a step in the right direction, a new direction, a new way of thinking. Watching the futures, watching the world burn."
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