The Quilt is as good a name as any for
Gym Class Heroes' post-hip-hop pop collage, as they weave together discarded strands of junk culture into something new yet naggingly familiar. More than most of their peers, they embody all the glorious and maddening contradictions of their generation. Raised in the heyday of hip-hop while steeped in the irony of '90s alt-rock, persistent nostalgia for '70s kitsch, and '80s new wave,
Gym Class Heroes see no borders between any era or style, mixing and matching the parts to create funky Frankensteins that feel as pop as they do rap. On
The Quilt, Travis McCoy and crew attempt to amp up the urban and hip-hop just a bit, working with
Cool & Dre -- producers with
the Game and
Lil Wayne to their credit -- and having
Rihanna associate the Dream in for the single "Cookie Jar," but they do all this without abandoning longtime running-partner
Fall Out Boy Patrick Stump, or their love of syrupy soft rock hooks, a love that manifests in a duet with
Daryl Hall, and choruses that feel borrowed from
Ben Folds, or maybe
Jack's Mannequin. All this stylistic hopscotch winds up unwittingly emphasizing just how much
Gym Class Heroes are indebted to
OutKast's -- or perhaps more specifically
André 3000 -- genre-bending, as the best moments here float on the same kind of giddy, infectious choruses that fueled "Roses." That
Gym Class Heroes get a little lax on their verses points out that they're better in broad strokes than details, just like how they deliver clever concepts that call out for a bit more wit than McCoy manages to muster. And that's also how
Gym Class Heroes'
Quilt is very, very much of its time: it skates by on the surface, which is appealing for a while, but in large doses it can seem like too much empty style. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine