This vinyl single contains two new, non-album tracks by the Masticators and both tracks are topnotch. “Boyfriend’s Heart”, written by Shane faubert, is a shot of pure pop pleasure – it features a super-catchy tune set to a bouncy, energetic beat with great background vocals. “Fine Afternoon” is a slow ballad surrounded by a lush, echo-laden soundscape with a slightly psychedelic feeling. As strong and assured as The Masticators debut album was, this single shows that they are continuing to envolve and grow. As with all singles from Pop The Balloon, this is beautifully packaged in a color picture sleeve.
Rock Beat
Okay, what do you get when you cross France’s coolest record company with the City of Angel’s great white hopes and even a great lost Cheepskates song? Why, you get the grand new Pop The Balloon single from The Masticators, written by Shane Faubert of course!
This, along with the dizzyingly Curt Boettcher-esque “Fine Afternoon” (from the pen of Lisa Mychols herself) on the flip, provides a double-whammied, full-dimensionally stereophonic, sensational stopgap-of-sorts.... until that second complete Masticators long-player itself gets mixed, manufactured and duly marketed, that is.
In Music We Trust – USA
The sensational Masticators turned up on France’s Pop The Balloon with two brand new tracks on this fab, retro-fresh single.
The front side is a cover of a previously unreleased song from the great garage band The Cheepskates. “Boyfriend’s Heart” is Shane Faubert’s jaunty, lighthearted ode to sassy girl groups of yore, and it might easily have become a hit if recorded by tough chicks like, say The Shangri Las or Chiffons back in the early 60’s. The Masticators give the song a wonderfully infectious, bobbysox sweet reading, but with cool, tussling guitar and fuzz-bass solo that musses its bouffant and smears its makeup just a little.
The B-side also hearkens back to the same general period, but takes a more extensive toke of the psychedelic, swingin’ 60’s. “Fine Afternoon” is a sensationally woozy drone, as if the band had combined The Kinks’ “Tired Of Waiting” with The Byrds and a bit of The Electric Prunes, then plastered the resultant tune with weird echo and duggy reverb. It leaves Lisa Mychols’ raga-ish vocals to emerge out of a fog, followed closely by The Beach Boys-gone-gothic harmonies of the fellows.