[10] For the track "Sour Times", the album samples Lalo Schifrin's "The Danube Incident" and Smokey Brooks' (Henry Brooks, Otis Turner) "Spin It Jig"; for "Strangers", Weather Report's (Wayne Shorter) "Elegant People"; for "Wandering Star", War's "Magic Mountain"; for "Biscuit", Johnnie Ray's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" (not the Bacharach/David song); and for "Glory Box", Isaac Hayes' "Ike's Rap II".

Listing it among the best trip hop albums, Fact said in 2015 that Dummy "was soaked in the same DIY, melting pot approach that typified much of Bristol's output at the time", and "laid bare the potentials afforded by sidestepping rigid genre formats.

Dalton concluded that "Portishead's post-ambient, timelessly organic blues are probably too left-field, introspective and downright Bristolian to grab short-term glory as some kind of Next Big Thing.

She described the record as "musique noire for a movie not yet made, a perfect, creamy mix of ice-cool and infra-heat that is desolate, desperate and driven by a huge emotional hunger, but also warmly confiding ...

"[28] In Q, Martin Aston lauded Dummy as "perhaps the year's most stunning debut album" and proclaimed that "the singer's frail, wounded-sparrow vocals and Barrow's mastery of jazz-sensitive soul/hip hop grooves and the almost forgotten art of scratching are an enthralling combination".

"[29] Tim Marsh of Select wrote: "Jumbling up hip hop, blues, jazz, dub and John Barry-esque TV theme tunes with the edgy lyrics and valium vocals of Beth Gibbons, it's lounge music for arty schizos.

Paul Evans remarked in Rolling Stone: "From tape loops and live strings, Fender Rhodes riffing and angelic singing, these English subversives construct très hip Gothic hip-hop ... Assertive rhythms and quirky production, however, save Portishead from languishing in any coy retro groove.

"[25] Entertainment Weekly's Steven Mirkin found the album "as musically compelling as it is emotionally chilly",[20] while Lorraine Ali praised it in the Los Angeles Times as "a new world of sonic esoterica ... lush and rich, yet delicate and haunting.

[30] The poll's supervisor Robert Christgau, however, remained relatively lukewarm, highlighting "Sour Times" and "Wandering Star" while briefly appraising the album overall as "Sade for androids".

AllMusic's John Bush wrote: "Portishead's album debut is a brilliant, surprisingly natural synthesis of claustrophobic spy soundtracks, dark breakbeats inspired by frontman Geoff Barrow's love of hip-hop, and a vocalist (Beth Gibbons) in the classic confessional singer/songwriter mold ...

"[18] Laura Barton recommended it as Portishead's key release in Uncut, commenting that the band, by setting their own original compositions to looped and scratched samples from "distressed vinyl", created "an introspective and avant-garde blues".

[27] In 2010, BBC Music reviewer Mike Diver called Dummy "quite simply one of the greatest debut albums of the 1990s" and said that "the constituents that make up much of this collection are easily traced – back to dub, to soul, and especially to hip hop ...