AllMusic similarly noted that "they kept their blueprint and made it a shade darker. Throughout "Insomniac", there are vague references to the band's startling multi-platinum breakthrough, but the album is hardly a stark confessional on the level of Nirvana's "In Utero". ... While nothing on the album is as immediate as "Basket Case" or "Longview," the band has gained a powerful sonic punch, which goes straight for the gut but sacrifices the raw edge they so desperately want to keep and makes the record slightly tame. Billie Joe hasn't lost much of his talent for simple, tuneful hooks, but after a series of songs that all sound pretty much the same, it becomes clear that he needs to push himself a little bit more if Green Day ever want to be something more than a good punk-pop band. As it is, they remain a good punk-pop band, and "Insomniac" is a good punk-pop record, but nothing more." Robert Christgau opined "[Armstrong's] songs conceptualize his natural whine with a musicality that undercuts his defeatism."