New CD from California's Hed PE is called "Insomnia" and it's out due to July 17th. It is not easy to put this album into one certain category. It is not even easy to judge it. This one's really various both musically and lyrically: it ranges from rap to trash metal. It's some kind of mash-up of whole Hed's discography and, naturally, whole lot of new, experimental stuff. Everyone's going to find something for himself. There's some punk rock here, rap, rapcore, metal, "sexcore" and so on. One word - G-Punk! You can ever find a cover of legendary "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield here (it hides under the name "Children"). Despite its variety, album is good from the beginning to the far end. Maybe it's because of the brilliant lyrics, for example:
"Today's the day, the time is here, we take back control and conquer our fears!"
I can guarantee that you haven't heard this kind of blend yet. Energetic metal of "Walk On By" hits you in one minute and then quickly turns into "SubNoize" rap in "Game Over", then gets back to punk rock in "Habeus" and so on. But it's really good mix, you can't tell it's done by few bands. You can hear Hed PE in every single song, you can hear this special Hed's style in every single song! DJ Product again goes crazy with samples from various movies - about freedom, politics and other. Oh, and there's also a little bit of blaming commercial music industry. Hed PE have always wanted to stay underground and independent. I don't know about you, but I really like when music is being done because of love, not money... I think noone will be disappointed after listening to "Insomnia": you can hear the big leap from "Back 2 Base X" here. For example drums on B2BX sounded pretty weak, kind of unmastered. Drums on "Insomnia" are perfect. I will wait with the sentence that it's their best album, beacuse it's too early to say that yet. But I can easily say it's one of their best works during these 13 years of Hed PE for sure!

and a word after the official review: this album is the shit!

dope review man, i think you're pretty right in everything

well......i love it...its about time they did a song with kottonmouth...ever since i heard them back in the day on k-rock i went out bought broke and i looked at the thank u part for all the other bands and kottonmouth was one of them...and at the time i was like wow they r Cool with eachother they should do some music than like a decade later they start doing music lol but anywayz....i love every second of each song...its hard to find bands that u can just listen to the whole cd and not really skip any songs...only with hed pe i could never really skip songs execpt for on black out lol...but other than that THIS ALBUM IS ILL AND THEY BETTER MAKE MORE MUSIC VIDEOS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD...it be pretty ill if david finch (director of fight club) did a video for them

thanks for the great review, now it's a lot harder to wait for it...

Cool review Onan

i have to admit that this album is terrible. In my opinion it doesnt do anything but sound like songs they have already done, or the songs that sound different (so called punk songs), sound like a cheap imitation of a combination of rancid/th transplants. The rap songs are probably the only creative songs on the album (Chorus parts).
I am the biggest hed pe fans, so this is hard for me to say, but i guess in my opinion this has been in the making.

Insomnia sounds like a overproduced album done by an unexperienced producer/mixer (Jared). So it equals sounding like crap. And by the way just cause you say you're punk rock in every other song doesnt mean you're in fact punk rock. Youre actually the total opposite of punk rock, a poser.

By the way im calling it right now, hed pe isnt going to break up, but they will go on a hiatus, while jared (with possibly dj product) cut a rap album for sub noize. this is just my predictions and not a fact or rumor or speculation; just my opinion.

so i think the album is terrible as a whole. some songs stand out but as a whole it just doesnt square up to past albums.

thanks.

lol

"Why do you come on a forum to heckle a band?"

lol, homie what are ya doin' man :'D

Stop bitching, guys. joeolive1234 fairly expressed his opinion.
You can dissagree and oppose but you have to respect it.

These two last post were just totally useless.

mr jack - fuckin agreed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

not everyone has to like the new shit - im disappointed in the new cd too - but im gonna give it a fair shake and listen to it more

yea, that's right, on some points he's even right... but damn... don't bring hed down, cuz overall it's a dope cd

That's what I think too. But that doesn't make it true.
Just please respect other people's opinions even when you don't like it.

And I don't want this to be a board of blind fanatics.
You gotta be critical to everyone. Even to your favourite band.

you're right, but, i mean, he's just new here, and started blasting on hed... that kinda got me wrong...
sure i respect his opinion...

I'm afraid i hav to agree with joeolive1234 on points he made. the album did disappoint me too. its definitely not the promised "punch in the throat". "Our heaviest album so far" - i dont think so.
However there are a couple of nice songs like Walk on by and Suffa which I really like and listen to everyday. Of course i m still a hardcore fan and will go to all the EU shows which I can make it to but yea dont hate anyone for expressing his/her own opinion.