"a fun and arty fuck-about of a solo album," writing that "there's a lot of sonic debris here, too: bratty Mouseketeer-like cheers, hokey ditties such as 'Stripper' and arbitrary instrumentation like military snare drums and penny whistles.

"[18] The Columbus Dispatch concluded: "While several cuts spill over with resonating guitar pop, many ride the fence between full-on heavy metal and numbing alt-rock.

"[19] The Guardian deemed the album "splenetic punky numbers one minute, lovelorn crooning the next," writing that it "veers between the actually-quite-good and arrant nonsense.

"[14] The Albuquerque Journal determined that "though most of the 15 songs (like the loosely structured 'Stripper', a sort of poke at the dancing profession, and the drumroll march of 'Total War') are experimental to be sure, there are still a couple of radio-ready pop gems, like the album opener, 'Shag', and 'Confidence Girl'.

"[11] The Plain Dealer thought that "while [Sugar Altar's] lyrics seemed to evade serious issues, [Deal]'s now developing an oblique, personal language to explore them.