[1] The band's work has received generally favorable reviews from the music press over the years.
"[2] Chris Nixon of Allmusic also gave their fourth album, A Modest Proposal, four stars; he compared it to King Crimson, Soft Machine, Albert Ayler, and Eugene Chadbourne and called it "a superb record.
"[3] Allmusic's Thom Jurek also gave their fifth album, Flock, four stars, naming it as "their most provocative album—which is saying plenty—but ... also their most antagonistically accessible.
It has been described as, among other genres, punk jazz,[1] avant-garde jazz, progressive rock, and heavy metal,[4] and certain songs have leaned into the likes of sludge metal, post-rock, punk rock,[6] funk, Latin music,[2] and klezmer.
[4] Reviewing a recent performance for the Los Angeles Times, Chris Barton categorized Gutbucket's sound as "a jagged yet fertile seam between jazz and rock highlighted by on-a-dime twists in tempo, time signatures and mood—often within the same song.