The early material was rock and guitar-oriented; of Super-Electric Jason Ankeny wrote in AllMusic that "Droning guitars, skeletal rhythms, and pop hooks—not vintage synths and pointillist melodies—were their calling cards ..."[13] Under the independent label Too Pure, the group's first full-length album, Peng!, was released in May 1992.

[14] Around this time, the line-up consisted of Gane and Sadier plus vocalist and guitarist Mary Hansen, drummer Andy Ramsay, bassist Duncan Brown, and keyboardist Katharine Gifford.

[5][7][15] Sean O'Hagan of the High Llamas joined as a quick replacement for their touring keyboardist, but was invited for their next record and "was allowed to make suggestions".

[5] Mark Jenkins commented in Washington Post that with the album, Stereolab "continues the glorious drones of [their] indie work, giving celestial sweep to [their] garage-rock organ pumping and rhythm-guitar strumming".

[5] A record that "captivated alternative rock", it represented the group's "high-water mark" said music journalists Tom Moon and Joshua Klein, respectively.

[29] A review in German newspaper Die Zeit stated that in Dots and Loops, Stereolab transformed the harder Velvet Underground-like riffs of previous releases into "softer sounds and noisy playfulness".

[24][36] Critic Joshua Klein said that "the emphasis this time sounds less on unfocused experimentation and more on melody ... a breezy and welcome return to form for the British band.

"[24] Erlewine of Allmusic stated that the album "[finds the group] deliberately recharging their creative juices" but he argued that Sound-Dust was "anchored in overly familiar territory.

Writer Pierre Perrone said that her "playful nature and mischievous sense of humour came through in the way she approached the backing vocals she contributed to Stereolab and the distinctive harmonies she created with Sadier.

"[39] The Observer's Molloy Woodcraft gave the album four out of five stars, and commented that Sadier's vocal performance as "life- and love-affirming", and the record as a whole as "Complex and catchy, bold and beatific.

[48] The group released six limited-edition singles in 2005 and 2006, which were anthologised in the 2006 compilation Fab Four Suture, and contained material which Mark Jenkins thought continued the brisker sound of the band's post-Hansen work.

[50] In 2008, the band issued their next album under the label 4AD titled, Chemical Chords, which "[downplays] their arsenal of analog synths in favor of live instrumentation".

[55] In 2013, Gane and Sadier, who both focused on Cavern of Anti-Matter and solo work respectively, performed at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival held at Pontins in Camber Sands.

[56] In February 2019, the group announced a tour of Europe and the United States to coincide with expanded, remastered reissues of several of the albums released under Warp Records.

[57][58][59] Stereolab's music combines a droning rock sound with lounge instrumentals, overlaid with sing-song female vocals and pop melodies, and has also made use of unorthodox time signatures.

[24] In reference to her laid-back delivery, Peter Shapiro wrote facetiously in Wire that Sadier "display[ed] all the emotional histrionics of Nico",[12] while some critics have commented that her vocals were unintelligible.

"[76] Dave Heaton of PopMatters said that their music also had "echoes of bubblegum, of exotica, of Beach Boys and bossa nova", with their earlier work "bearing strong Velvet Underground overtones".

[32][39] Stephan Davet of French newspaper Le Monde said that Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996) had musical influences such as Burt Bacharach, and Françoise Hardy.

[78] The sounds influenced by minimalist composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich can be found on the 1999 album Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night.

Joshua Klein in Washington Post said that, "Years before everyone else caught on, Stereolab [were] referencing the 1970s German bands Can and Neu!, the Mexican lounge music master Esquivel and the decidedly unhip Burt Bacharach.

In a 1996 Washington Post gig review, Mark Jenkins wrote that Stereolab started out favouring an "easy-listening syncopation", but eventually reverted to a "messier, more urgent sound" characteristic of their earlier performances.

[82] Jim Harrington of The Oakland Tribune argued that "Sadier often sounded like a third percussion instrument more than a lead vocalist", further stating in regard to her switching between singing in English and French that "a Stereolab show is one of the few concerts where it's hard to find even the biggest fans mouthing along with the lyrics.

"[84] Lætitia Sadier, who writes the group's lyrics, was influenced by both the Situationist philosophy Society of the Spectacle by Marxist theorist Guy Debord,[8] and her anger towards the Iraq War.

In the song, Sadier sings "about capitalism's cruel cycles of slump and recovery" with lyrics that constitute "a plainspoken explanation of one of the central tenets of Marxian economic analysis" (said critics Reynolds and Stewart Mason, respectively).

[90] Stereolab have been called one of the most "influential" and "fiercely independent and original groups of the Nineties" by writers Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Pierre Perrone respectively;[5][7] as well as one of "the decade's most innovative British bands."

"[76] In a review for the 1992 single "John Cage Bubblegum", Jason Ankeny said that "No other artist of its generation fused the high-minded daring of the avant-garde and the lowbrow infectiousness of pop with as much invention, skill, and appeal.

[94] Stephen Christian, a creative director of Warp Records, said that the group "exists in the gap between the experimentation of the underground and the appeal of the wider world of pop music".

"[95] In Guardian, Dave Simpson stated: "With their borrowings from early, obscure Kraftwerk and hip obtuse sources, [Stereolab] sound like a band of rock critics rather than musicians.

[47][106] Early in their career, their 1993 EP Jenny Ondioline entered the UK Singles Chart, but financial issues prevented the band from printing enough records to satisfy demand.

[106][107] According to Sadier, however, the band "[avoided] going overground" like PJ Harvey, Pulp and the Cranberries, all of whom quickly rose from obscurity to fame, adding: "This kind of notoriety is not a particularly good thing, [and] you don't enjoy it anymore.