Well, this is what might have resulted had he worked with Robin Guthrie or Kevin Shields”, while Marc Hogan, in his review for Spin Magazine wrote that the EP "blasts through not only genres, but the divide between the otherworldly and the physical”.

[6][7] Despite the early hype Holy Other immediately developed a reputation for being a particularly elusive and private artist, rarely divulging personal details about himself and preferring not to be photographed or filmed during interviews.

[10] Ruth Saxelby, in her eight-out-of-ten review for Pitchfork stated "his music is of the wholly sensual, painfully physical kind, and with Held he triumphantly translates his bruised intimacy to full-length format without losing any of its skin-prickling power”.

"[15] In their 8/10 review for The Line of Best Fit, Jack Bray describes the Holy Other's Lieve as "Artfully exploring intimacy, loss, past and present, his work remains eerily immortal; utterly of its time but also defiantly modern."

"[16] In another 8/10 review, Mat Smith of Clash (magazine) concludes "As the final moments of ‘Bough Down’ play out, Ainley’s sleight-of-hand in The sequencing of his second Holy Other album is revealed, leaving the listener experiencing a cautious fragility and subversive, timeless sense of purpose.