[5] In a contemporary review for Playboy, Robert Christgau regarded Bricks Are Heavy as an "object lesson in how to advance your music by meeting the marketplace halfway", although he believed it would not sell as much as it deserved.

He said Vig helped L7 produce grunge-metal featuring "intense admixtures of ditty and power chord" that "never quite gathers Nirvana's momentum, but it's just as catchy and a touch nastier.

's Steffan Chirazi was most impressed by the album's "relentlessness" in "driving the frustrations of everyday life home",[9] and Gina Arnold said in Entertainment Weekly that L7 distinguish themselves from the musically similar Nirvana through the "clarity" of their lyrics.

"Although the band's positive-plus stances on liberal issues may not instantly endear it to fuzzy-minded teen America," Arnold wrote, "L7 does manage to be simultaneously fun and furious, an intensely appealing combination.

[18] Reviewing Bricks Are Heavy for AllMusic, Eduardo Rivadavia said that Vig helped L7 "obtain a tight, compact sound" and sharpen their songwriting on what would be their "crowning achievement" and "an impossible act to follow".