Miss Maria chants tautological slogans and in comparison to Spiritual Unity, Bells, and Ghosts Ayler's playing is so crudely simplified that one can hardly believes this to be the same man".

In a review for AllMusic, Al Campbell called the album "a powerful and often ignored recording... a prophetic statement dealing with guilt, confusion, sorrow, and hopes of redemption..." and wrote: "Ayler's musical curtain was eerily closing the same way it started -- playing the blues of his high school summer vacations as a member of Little Walter's band.

Complete with a bagpipes solo, an intensely spiritual recitation from his wife Mary Maria and former Mothers Of Invention/Canned Heat guitarist Henry Vestine playing electric free blues, many jazz critics at the time found this, now groundbreaking album, too difficult to decipher.

This final studio statement touches on all the major themes of Ayler's life: sorrow, loss, guilt and, above all, redemption.

While Levine praised Bobby Few's piano work and Muhammad Ali's drumming, he was less approving of Mary Maria Parks' vocals, stating that they "clog up the album", and he called the final track, "Drudgery", "a completely baffling, long, lame blues-rock jam thing, that doesn't fit with the rest of the album", commenting "I'm shaking my head, wondering what the hell were they thinking.