It also helped us school ourselves a bit on how to engineer a basic recording.”[4] The slightly more "polished" sound of the record was an intentional result of Niceley "reacting to what he [had] heard from the popular bands with the same DNA as Fugazi that were getting heavy airplay" at the time.

So to my ear every record sounds like a step forward, or sideways, or at least somewhere else from the one before it.”[4] Matt Diehl of Rolling Stone labelled the album "a virtual encyclopedia of punk-derived musical styles" and recognized a large number of influences from bands such as The Ruts, U.K. Subs (for "Facet Squared" and "Public Witness Program"), Sonic Youth (for "Smallpox Champion"), Gang of Four (for "Cassavetes"), Pylon, "early" R.E.M.

[6] "23 Beats Off" earned comparisons to an early Wire track "literally stretched and pulled out to nearly seven minutes, [as] MacKaye goes from singing (as best he can) to screaming about a man who was once “at the center of some ticker tape parade,” who turns into “a household name with HIV.”"[5] Jason Diamond writing for Pitchfork noted that "[l]yrically, it’s also one of the more ambitious albums from the era.

While burying any meaning beneath a pile of words like Cobain or bands like Pavement were so fond of doing was certainly du jour, Fugazi liked to mix things up.

[5] The Picciotto-written "Smallpox Champion" references the genocides perpetrated by the United States' founding fathers against native Americans.

[12] By the time the In on the Kill Taker tour was underway, the group began to sell-out large auditoriums and arenas, as well as receive more lucrative major label offers.

[14] An article by The Washington Post published in August that year noted that Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love – "rock's couple of the moment" – had attended a show of theirs in Seattle and even met the band afterwards.

It also recounted a similar level of interest from Michael Stipe (who "dance[d] the hokey-pokey in the street in front of the Capitol Theatre with Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty") and Eddie Vedder (who wanted to know where MacKaye and Picciotto lived during a tour of Washington D.C.) as well.

[2] Rolling Stone writer Matt Diehl wrote that Fugazi had reclaimed the "only band that matters" label from The Clash.

"[15] Spin was even more dismissive, calling it "Fugazi's most rigid and predictable album yet" despite its "spunky moments", and criticizing their politics as being didactic.

"[25] Similarly, AllMusic critic Andy Kellman wrote: "It's probably Fugazi's least digestible record from front to back, but each track has its own attractive qualities, even if not immediately perceptible.

"[26] In a very positive retrospective review, Jason Diamond writing for Pitchfork compared the impact of the album to Brian Eno's statement regarding The Velvet Underground's first album: "the hundreds of thousands of people who bought In on the Kill Taker or saw the band as they trekked across America, Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, that year and beyond, were impacted in some way.

[37][38] Greg Saunier and André de Ridder along with Stargaze "re-composed" the album in its entirety under the title Instruments, which was released on Record Store Day, 2019.