Flesh + Blood also included two cover versions: the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour".

[2] The album was the band's first without drummer Paul Thompson, whose departure reduced Roxy Music to a core trio of singer Bryan Ferry, saxophonist Andy Mackay and guitarist Phil Manzanera, augmented by session musicians.

Saville worked with no input from Ferry or the rest of the band, but continued the tradition for Roxy Music albums to feature images of women on the cover artwork.

Ken Tucker panned it in his Rolling Stone review, "Flesh + Blood is such a shockingly bad Roxy Music record that it provokes a certain fascination.

"[10] David Hepworth, writing in Smash Hits, said, "Original followers [of the band] may find it low on character and surprise while lovers of the mighty "Over You" should be suckers for its mature, silky charms.

"[9] Greil Marcus praised the album: "This record, all graceful lust and wistful regret, is pure romance; it’s also the best summer music anyone’s made since oil spills began undermining the concept ...

"[11] The New Rolling Stone Record Guide give it three stars and say "Manifesto and Flesh + Blood, released after the band split up between 1976 and 1978, were good of their kind, but they lacked the spark that made some of the earlier albums so grand.

"[12] Stephen Thomas Erlewine states "even the handful of undeniably strong moments can't erase the feeling that Roxy Music were beginning to run out of ideas.

Ferry's singing succumbs to the seductions of the beat and actually shows some life, so that even though the lyrics are actually quite as predictable as they want to be, their juxtaposition with heavily romantic piano chords, synth riffs, and Andy Mackay's soprano sax solo lends them a lush romanticism, as if the love song overlay were genuinely felt by all concerned.

"[15] AllMusic in a review of the single: "Over You" represents one of the crowning achievements of Roxy Music's last years, a hauntingly hypnotic love song which spirals along on a warm bed of rhythm and guitar, interspersed with a few slabs of classic Roxy dissonance, and interrupted by some classic Beatles-ish guitar from Phil Manzanera.

"[11] Jonathan Rigby praised the second single from the album, writing "If "Dance Away" achieved Ferry's long-held ambition and became accepted as a modern standard, it's hard to see why the same accolade has yet to be bestowed on "Oh Yeah", which is perhaps the most limpidly beautiful ballad in his portfolio.

"[17] AllMusic in its review states "The sequence of exquisite singles that Roxy Music rattled off as the late '70s became the early '80s was highlighted by any number of songs which, dispassionately, could be ranked among Bryan Ferry's purest pop visions yet.

By 1981, the charts would be full of songs with a similarly musical trajectory: rumbling disco bass, clipped, riffy guitar and a smooth vocal over the top.