Meatbodies Amble Into Empty Bottle This Friday

By Casey Moffitt in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 15, 2014 3:15PM

photo credit Denee Petracek

Hot off the heels of their self-titled full-length debut, Meatbodies will be bringing their brand of fuzzed-out, garage psychedelia to the Empty Bottle Friday night.

Meatbodies is the brainchild of LA-based musician Chad Ubovich who has been circulating closely around Ty Segall's orbit, playing with Mikal Cronin and FUZZ most recently. But he's got the chance to break out on his own with this new act and really show off his chops.

The album is a wild ride that turns frenetic to dark and moody with all of it under a haze of foggy intensity.

The album begins with about a minute of eerie keyboards and switches gears into a fast-paced punk tune, "Disorder," that is reminiscent of The Jam. Ubovich doesn't maintain this pace throughout the 12 tracks, but takes fun twists and turns into more heavily psychedelic corners, back to almost surf rock tunes, and eventually into the downright epic "The Master," which shifts from heavy groove to a Hawkwind-esque space rock rave-up and back to close out the album. Pepper in a few hot guitar solos and you've got a solid debut album.

It doesn't delve into depression or madness. It isn't going to bum you out, as the ride is a pretty fun. It's almost like coming down slow and easy from a wild high (not that we'd really know anything about such matters).

Meatbodies was recorded in San Francisco by Eric "King Riff" Bauer; whose resume includes Thee Oh Sees, White Fence and the aforementioned Ty Segall; and expertly mixed by Chris Woodhouse. The instrumentation on the album is fairly minimal, which allows enough space to quickly grasp just how much is going on musically thanks to Woodhouse's contributions.

So, we are really excited to see what Meatbodies brings to the stage Friday night. There is a lot of good energy on the album, and if they can make it translate to the stage, it should be a pretty good time.

Meatbodies performs on Friday, Oct. 7, with OBN Ills and Hunter at Empty Bottle, 1035 N. Western Ave., at 9:30 p.m., $10, 21+