(hed) p.e - Insomnia review

Release Date: 07/17/2007

Label: Suburban Noize Records

(hed) p.e's style of music can be quite hard to categorize. Much like a donkey can be quite hard to play Canasta with. I'm gonna go ahead and label it 'hard rock-izzle', or 'H-Rizzle' for short. The intriguing blend of hard rock and rap. Many bands have done it before....very few have lasted. But with 13 years and 7 albums up their sleeves it seems (hed) p.e wont give up on a dying sub-genre.

Insomnia is an album full of political rants and lyrical content that just begs to be taken seriously. Its kinda hard to do that when its slapped up next to a song which begins with the inspiring lyrics, "I'm fascinated with pussy". Don't get me wrong, I also am quite intrigued by the female reproductive system but probably won't mention it whilst attempting to hold a serious conversation. But lets face it...if they weren't to mention topics such as sex, drugs and living on the mean streets of "Cali", there would be a little too much hard rock and not enough rap.

If all it took to create 'H-Rizzle' was to smack some lyrics about drugs over the top of some hard rock instrumentation then we'd probably see a lot more of these bands popping up. Luckily there is more to it. You still need to keep some of the urban grooves....some of the funk....some of the phat ass beats. And (hed) p.e are certainly not short of phat ass beats. But upon listening to the album i remembered a thing my mother used to tell me when i was young. She said "Son, if you ever want to create music that merges the edginess of hard rock with the phat ass beats of rap then make sure you can seamlessly blend the two together!" I always thought she was crazy, but after listening to Insomnia i realized she was totally out of her mind....but she had a point. Why merge two totally different styles if you can't do it right? The song writing process often seems like they had a good idea going....realized they hadn't incorporated the other style for approximately 1 minute...so just smacked it in where ever they could. No blending, no smoothness...nothing! It is quite possible that this was intended....maybe this is what (hed) p.e wanted to achieve. Maybe writing music this way would be considered 'original' and 'unique'. Or maybe they realised that they hadn't released an album for 12 months so better slap one together as quick as possible.

Despite all that I've said, if you get past the cheesy lyrics and the seemingly rushed song writing, then this album is actually quite a fun listen. Nothing that's going to make (hed) p.e number one on the charts, but just some good old fun. My only advice to (hed) p.e is to take some time on the next album...wait a few more months, perfect the songs before throwing them onto a CD. There is potential here for something good....not great...but good! And in the words of (hed) p.e themselves, "Its funk dude, nigga bring me the doctor". Amen brother!

Rating: 2.5/5
Choice lyric: "Daddy you drive me crazy, daddy lets make some babies"
Download: Walk On By, Suffa