While most of the album was completed in time for the planned release date of September 1980, the group found it difficult to record a version of "Double Dare" as good as the one they had performed on DJ John Peel's BBC Radio 1 programme.

[4] NME's Andy Gill wrote that the dark atmosphere of the record was reminiscent of contemporaries such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Adam and the Ants, and Joy Division.

[8][7] The album was first released on CD by 4AD in April 1988 with eight bonus tracks, including three non-album singles: "Dark Entries", "Terror Couple Kill Colonel", and a cover of T. Rex's "Telegram Sam".

While In the Flat Field received positive reviews in fanzine publications, the album was "absolutely slated" by the British weekly music press according to Bauhaus biographer Ian Shirley.

[15] Andy Gill of NME described the album as "nine meaningless moans and flails bereft of even the most cursory contour of interest, a record which deserves all the damning adjectives usually levelled at grim-faced 'modernists,'" ultimately dismissing them as "a hip Black Sabbath".

[18] Jonathan Selzer of Classic Rock magazine described the album as "remarkably self-possessed, a distillation of influences down to a potent curtains-drawn universe of Bauhaus's own.

"[11] AllMusic's Raggett wrote: "In the Flat Field practically single-handedly invented what remains for many as the stereotype of goth music—wracked, at times spindly vocals about despair and desolation of many kinds, sung over mysterious and moody music".

[24] All tracks are written by Bauhaus (Peter Murphy, Daniel Ash, David J, Kevin Haskins), except as notedCredits are sourced from the liner notes of the original release.