Becoming X

During their tour, they opened for Blur and Neneh Cherry, and played with Tricky and Lamb, establishing themselves as a trip hop band.

They also featured on the Marilyn Manson track "Long Hard Road Out of Hell", released on 22 July 1997 and included in the film Spawn.

[2] On 19 August 2022, the band began "a month of song and video celebrations" on their YouTube channel to mark the 26th anniversary of the release of the album.

[9] Becoming X received mostly positive reviews from contemporary critics, who often compared Sneaker Pimps to trip hop artists like Portishead and Tricky.

AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised Becoming X as "one of the most engaging byproducts of post-Portishead trip-hop", while also noting Sneaker Pimps as being more guitar-driven than their predecessors.

[10] Jeremy Helligar wrote in Entertainment Weekly that "Sneaker Pimps manage to be ominously spooky on Becoming X without indulging in Tricky's gothic pretension and hypnotic without lapsing into Portishead's one-note gloom.

"[12] In Rolling Stone, Ken Micallef wrote that whilst not deviating from the female-fronted trip hop band formula, the group manages to "make pop as tension-filled as an Edgar Allan Poe novel".

[14] Pitchfork's Ryan Schreiber likened Sneaker Pimps to "an electrified version of Sade" and praised the album's vocals, beats and guitars, albeit criticizing the songs for seemingly losing "a lot of their appeal once you're familiar with them".

[16] In a more critical review for NME, Dele Fadele commended the band's original sound for blending electronic, orchestral and rock elements but ultimately described the result as boring.