With this lineup, they grew in popularity due to their wild live shows and strong anti-racist, anti-homophobic and internationalist message at a time of rising xenophobia in Australian politics and society.
"[2] Anthony Carew in The Age wrote "from acknowledging racist states, to attacking such prejudice, to dreaming of some utopian global community in which 'all cultures come together', the album, unlike so many rap records, finds the lyricists talking about not just themselves, but the world at large."
Brian Ho at Dusted Magazine described it as "a wonderfully imagined album that successfully borrows and reinterprets sounds from all facets of music and culture, creatively but still with enough energy and bounce for frequent neck exercise."
The song "85 percent" received high rotation on Triple J. Dan Rule in Music Australia Guide found that "while as untethered as ever, new record Crisis Tales is also Curse's most concise.
[7] Ron Hart in Pop Matters noted that "some may not have much interest in issues such as Aboriginal rights or the rampant political corruption of Curse Ov Dialect's home continent, Crisis Tales nevertheless commands attention, thanks to the uncanny mic skills of MCs Raceless and Volk Makedonski and their unique back-and-forth with vocalists August the 2nd and Atarungi.
Sebastian Chan in Cyclic Defrost writes that "their early shows had more in common in terms of theatrics with Throbbing Gristle than anything hip hop"[9] while Joe Tangari in Pitchfork Media describes their performance as "like the Village People gone to the dark side, with a caped, masked weirdo and a staff-wielding Maltese duke flanking the stage and two guys in the middle dressed respectively like a South Asian prince and a mental hospital patient with severe head trauma.
Amongst others, they have supported Slippy Mane, Public Enemy, Future Islands, Peaches, Yamataka Eye, Kool Keith, Blackalicious, Chicks on Speed, Anticon, Buck 65, Busdriver, Saul Williams, Edan, Atmosphere, Kid 606, Severed Heads, Florian Hecker, V/Vm, and Cobra Killer.