Michael Azzerad and Ira Robbins of Trouser Press were more positive, writing that the album "boasts a formidable dynamic range, from the meditative instrumental "Were, Are and Was or Is," which pours sublimely chirping feedback over dappled guitar arpeggios, through the pile-driving "Pure Pain Sugar" and up to the apoplectic heights of "Lucky Acid" and the schizo noise bursts of the aptly named "Nervous Energy"".

Despite criticizing Justin Trosper's vocals as "generic indie-rock holler" and the album's general lack of hooks, they found them to be "more than compensated for by the band's inventive attack (especially by Lund) and the sheer number of cool sounds and textures that festoon every track.

"[7] The album received a lot more critical attention upon its re-release through the Rat Conspiracy box-set (which also included the follow-up New Plastic Ideas alongside other material recorded by the band during that time period) in 2014.

[3] Jason Heller of Pitchfork wrote that the album "lurches, twists, and turns in on itself, as if manifesting some perverse, extended metaphor for the feedback that laces nearly ever track" in his review of the box-set.

"[11] Treble gave the album an 8.4 out of 10, writing that "no song on Fake Train is so abrasive as to be inaccessible, but it’s certainly one of the loudest and most chaotic of the band’s records, Trosper rarely singing in a register that isn’t a strained yelp.

There aren’t many moments on the album that allow breathing room [...] But by and large, the attractions are the direct, dissonant punk tracks like opener “Dragnalus,” which, in simple arrangements and progressions, show just how peculiar—and awesome—the Washingtonian band's take on post-hardcore really was.