Review From CDNow
Astoundingly great must have been the pressure on this multi-platinum threesome when they reentered the studio to follow up their pop punk popularity-forging Dookie, but they surprised us and everyone else when they emerged with an album that's anything but Dookie Pt. 2. Insomniac shows a darker and coarser expanse of the teenage wasteland than the band's Technicolor Dookie, and it may not only be the sleeper hit of the coming year, but the album that ultimately speaks to the band's creative fortuity. Under the microscope of massive commercial success, Billie Joe and co. held fast to their sense of cultural alienation and produced some of their most uncompromising work.

Review From Rolling Stone
Purists of the abyss, malcontent Sid Vicious nostalgics bitch that Green Day aren't orthodox punks. All right, just label the Berkeley, Calif., trio brilliant punkoids and be done with it. But it's useful to remember that before mythic Brits such as the Sex Pistols and the Clash spewed distorted guitar and anarchic politics, punk essentially was the Ramones -- that is, basically just the Beach Boys ultraloud and pissed off.
Employing the Jam and the Damned on "Dookie" in the same way the Rolling Stones emulated Elmore James, Billie Joe, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool of Green Day render the spirit of (19)76 in crunchy pop-guitar hooks, trebly bass and madcap tempos. They're convincing mainly because they've got punk's snotty anti-values down cold: blame, self-pity, arrogant self-hatred, humor, narcissism, fun.

On rave-ups like "Basket Case," "Welcome to Paradise," "Having a Blast" and "Longview," Green Day's lyrics score graffiti hits: "I don't know you, but I think I hate you"; "She screams in silence"; "No time for motivation/Smoking my inspiration." And if for targets they substitute demonized moms and mall ennui for the jackboot brutality of the State, they render teen-age wasteland politics with all the more accurate deadpan wit.