Intrepid intern turned actual VICE staffer River Donaghey is releasing an album with his band Pocket Hercules next week, so we told him we'd premiere the record if we could get a celebrity to review it. We asked Aaron Carter, of "Aaron's Party" and "That's How I Beat Shaq" fame, to give the record a listen and report back. Unfortunately, Aaron hated it, and sent us a track-by-track review tearing the album apart. Sorry, River.
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I understand this dark, kinda emo pop-rock music. I hired a tour manager last year named Brent Wingen. He was a super chill dude. He always wore the same black jeans and took me to random SXSW concerts while we were in Texas on my tour, so I got to see and hear this genre of music.I liked the Dum Dum Girls, but everything else kinda scared me a bit. I still fucking enjoyed SXSW and surprisingly lots of people there recognized me and took pictures with me. It was dope. What I'm saying is that this kind of music isn't foreign to me, because I started off doing 90s grunge/garage music when I was six in a band called Dead End. We sucked.At least Pocket Hercules is better than that. Yes, I compared you to a six-year-old and his band who played for coffee houses and had a 70-year-old keyboardist who is probably dead now. Yeah, I said it.First track is pretty good but extremely forgettable. I couldn't sing you a line right now to save my fucking life. I'm kinda confused where this album is headed.OK. What the fuck guys, 52 seconds long? What are you trying to do to people? I guess being tortured for 50 seconds isn't as bad as three minutes or more, so thank you for sparing me from using my energy to change the track. Right when I wanted to change it, it changed itself.No comment.No comment.No comment.No comment.No comment.I skipped a few. Now onto "Little Pieces." Anyway, what the fuck is this song trying to do? Get people to crash in their cars with that squealing guitar lick? Damn-near crashed my car. And a terrible place to fade out at the end.The majority of the album has a decent mix on it. Time signatures on this song are mediocre at best, pretty repetitious arrangements, and a weak-ass guitar solo before the second verse. Sorry. I don't think I can understand a single word in this song. I tried! I'm actually listening. I hear nothing; I understand nothing. You should just say you did this song in the German language, 'cause it's definitely not English.Starting off pretty weird. I can barely hear the ride cymbal in there, and when I do it sounds like a creepy Santa Claus about to come through my chimney. This song is super trippy. If you're trying to appeal to druggies then I'm sure this song will take them on a weird trip. Don't do DMT and listen to this song, you might not come out of it. But maybe a spiritual awakening is needed, because the song leaves me feeling depressed and un-adjusted. Abrupt ending, too, thank God.Did you guys tune your instruments before you recorded? Clearly no one is a poet. There is no reason or rhyme to this song. I think you guys just took songs from the 90s and revamped them.All in all, this is pretty much grunge pop meets Dirty Beaches. It is super depressing, but what do I know? I do fucking pop music. If I was feeling depressed or some shit I might just throw this on and escape.Aaron Carter actually wrote this. You can follow him on Twitter. Also, catch his live show at the El Rey Theatre in LA on Friday, March 27. You can buy tickets here.Follow Pocket Hercules on Twitter and Facebook. Their self-titled album is out March 24 on Seagreen Records.Pre-order the record here, and go to their release show March 25 at Brooklyn's Shea Stadium.