Gym Class Heroes - The Quilt Review

Posted by Daniel Wilcox on 09.09.2008

The Heroes finally live up to their massive potential!

At the beginning of the summer, Gym Class Heroes released a new EP that previewed three tracks from their upcoming fourth studio album The Quilt. The three-track EP entitled cleverly titled Patches From The Quilt featured “Peace Sign/Index Down”, which you can check out here, a track featuring hip-hop legend Busta Rhymes, “Cookie Jar”, the album’s first single, which features The Dream and can be seen here and “Blinded By The Sun”, featuring Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump. All three tracks are distinctly different and immensely enjoyable, and thus had me very hyped for The Quilt. It takes a lot to get me excited by any hip hop album in 2008, so I was expecting a lot from this new album.

The Quilt was produced by Cool & Dre (The Game, Fat Joe, Busta Rhymes), Tricky Stewart (Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Rihanna) and Patrick Stump (Cobra Starship, The Hush Sound) and features cameos by some huge names including Rhymes, The Dream, Stump, Estelle, Lil Wayne and even Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates fame (apparently GCH frontman Travis McCoy is a big fan).



Gym Class Heroes – The Quilt
Review by Dan Wilcox

Travis McCoy – Vocals
Disashi Lumumba-Kasongo – Guitar
Eric Roberts – Bass guitar, backing vocals
Matt McGinley – Drums, percussion
Track listing:
1. Guilty As Charged [Feat. Estelle] (4:00)
2. Drnk Txt Rmeo (3:25)
3. Peace Sign/Index Down [Feat. Busta Rhymes] (4:00)
4. Like Father, Like Son (Papa’s Song (4:16)
5. Blinded By The Sun [Feat. Patrick Stump] (3:00)
6. Catch Me If You Can (5:07)
7. Cookie Jar [Feat. The Dream] (3:35)
8. Live A Little (3:43)
9. Don’t Tell Me It’s Over [Feat. Lil Wayne] (4:11)
10. Live Forever (Fly With Me) [Feat. Daryl Hall] (7:09)
11. Kissin’ Ears (3:42)
12. Home (5:07)
13. No Place to Run (3:45)
14. Coming Clean (3:02)

The Quilt kicks off with what sounds like a remixed intro of a Rocky Balboa training montage before exploding into a soulful swipe at critics of not just Gym Class but the entire scene that they are supposedly a part of due to their record label and association with bands like Fall Out Boy. I wasn’t sold on UK songstress Estelle until her fun cameo on this track, but she really adds something to the number and her and Travis play off of each other really well.

The album’s main single is “Cookie Jar”, an extended metaphor comparing an addiction for sugary snacks to an addiction for sex and cheating, hence the lyrics “I can’t keep my hands out the cookie jar”. The Dream provides vocals on the simplistic but insanely catchy chorus but it’s McCoy’s lyrics in the verses than make this song so great. Another catchy track “Drnk Txt Rmeo”, is either following along the same lines of “Cookie Jar” with the metaphor for sex, or is just a song about a texting obsession, but either way, it falls short of the lead single.

What “Drnk Txt Rmeo” does have, however, is fantastic reggae vibe that pops up again, only moreso, in the track “Blinded By The Sun”. This turns the tables on the track “Cookie Jar” as McCoy is now the one being cheated one. While up to this point the tracks have a laid back feel to them, this one is bursting with attitude, angst and general discontent. The band turn this vibe up tenfold with the track “Don’t Tell Me It’s Over”, featuring one of today’s best rap artists Lil Wayne. The track is a big “fuck you” to the band’s critics, kicking off with a sultry piano intro and progresses with McCoy’s clever lyrics that mock the band’s haters and a somewhat genius chorus.

"You see I got this problem, I need help tryna solve it
Cause meeting after meeting and I'm still a cookie whore
You can hide them, I'm a find them, on the counter, in the closet
And I'll say I ain't do it with my face covered in chocolate
My girl be setting booby traps, to catch me eating Scooby snacks
I left crumbs in the bed once but I told her I was through with that
She still don't be believing me and I guess that I'm cool with that
But I got a sweet tooth, that'll never come loose and the truth of the matter is.

I like girls,
They like me
They look so good
In they're satin jeans
Want you to be the one
And my only
I want to be faithful
But I can't keep my hands out the cookie jar"

- Cookie Jar

While The Quilt is predominantly a hip hop record from a predominantly hip hop band, they do make great use of the talents that they have in the other band members. “Live A Little” and “No Place To Run” sound completely out of place and feature no rapping whatsoever. They souns like the kind of upbeat track you might find on the UK indie scene. “Live A Little” in particular has a couple of really nice guitar riffs, a mammoth chorus and climaxes with a beastly guitar solo. McCoy had stated interviews that axeman Lumumba-Kasongo was more prominent on this record and a “monster”, and this is evidence of that claim. “Home” also features some excellent guitar work, more specifically on its somewhat epic intro. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many tracks like this one that showcase the guy’s ability but when they do appear, they’re highlights of the album.

Speaking of highlights of the album, who would have thought that Daryl Hall would be providing one of them. “Live Forever (Fly With Me)” is a 7-minute belter of a tune, opening with a gentle piano melody accompanied by a swirling wind before driving into the opening chorus. I’ve never rated Hall as much of a vocalist but here he reminds me of Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, who released one of my favourite records of the year. Hall’s great vocal work on the choruses coupled with some of McCoy’s very best song writing and another brilliant guitar solo make for something of a masterpiece, easily the best track on the album and a must-hear.

"Call me crazy, call me odd,
call me what you want to.
But Karma is a bitch,
I pray to god she always haunts you."

- Blinded By The Sun

I think it’s worth commenting on the choice of guests on this album, as there are many, and they are of varying styles and work to a varying degree of success. My favourite cameos are those by Estelle, Lil Wayne and Daryl Hall as the respective tracks that they feature on are amongst the strongest of the album. Despite Hall’s greatness, he doesn’t outshine McCoy, instead he compliments him, and the same goes for Lil Wayne and Estelle.

Unfortunately, Busta Rhymes’s verse in “Peace Sign/Index Down” only serves to show how very superior Rhymes is as a rapper compared to McCoy, in pretty much every department. But that’s really a minor complaint as the song itself is pretty good and I’ll never say no to any track involving Busta Rhymes.

You may recognize Patrick Stump’s distinctive vocal style on Blinded By The Sun. As soon as I heard about him working with Gym Class again, I was concerned he’d completely outshine the band much like he did on their two big singles from the previous album, “Cupid’s Chokehold” and “Clothes Off!” However, that wasn’t the case as it was a couple of listens through before I realized he even featured on the track.

"Before I utter words and before I start to begin
Let me make sure you clear I'm about securing the win
I puzzle up my words while I piece another concoction
Cause I'm stubborn with the thought that failure was never an option
I grinds like a carpenter until my caleceous's bleed
With the passion from my heart to the many mouths that I feed
That's why I look at most of you stupid I know it's odd
Because you can't really do nuttin to me unless you God!"

- Peace Sign/Index Down (Busta Rhymes)

All in all, I really, really like this album – it’s fantastic, but I do have one fairly big complaint and that’s that it feels completely disjointed in places. With a band like Gym Class Heroes who are going to put songs that sound have a hip hop sound and a rock sound all on the same album, I think there has to be some kind of logical progression and there isn’t one minute. One minute you’ll be listening to a great solo and the next it’s some bitch-hating lyric. While every track works in its own bubble, The Quilt does lack flow.

Still, I give the band credit for coming out with an album that’s completely different to anything else out there at the moment. All the tracks are keepers, have individual and extraordinary vibes and it makes for the band’s very best album, by far.

The 411: I haven't listened to too many hip hop records this year, but this is easily the best one I've heard, out-ranking a couple of great efforts from Lil Wayne and The Roots. But to label this just a hip hop record is an injustice as Gym Class Heroes bring elements from rock, reggae, R&B, alternative, emo and rap and mix them all together to make for a brilliant hour of musical miss-matches. And for the most part, everything clicks. I did mention that some tracks seem a little out of place but that's merely a stlying issue; the substance of this album is fantastic.

Final Score:  8.9   [ Very Good ]