[3] An austerely produced trip hop record, Nearly God was well received by critics and featured collaborations between Tricky and artists such as Alison Moyet, Björk, Neneh Cherry, Terry Hall, and Martina Topley-Bird, who had worked with him on his previous album Maxinquaye (1995).

The final product contains collaborations with Terry Hall (singer of The Specials), Alison Moyet, Cath Coffey, Neneh Cherry, Björk and Martina Topley-Bird.

[4] James Hunter of Rolling Stone found the music gripping, "recalling the early intimacy of Laurie Anderson, the raw aggression of Public Image Ltd. and the spaced oddities of Scott Walker".

"[14] In Melody Maker, Taylor Parkes deemed it "a mess, albeit a hugely affecting one, a stop-gap, when three more months spent on arrangements and production would have fastered a masterpiece to surpass Maxinquaye".

[19] Robert Christgau, the poll's creator, later gave it a one-star honorable mention, indicating "a worthy effort consumers attuned to its overriding aesthetic or individual vision may well like".

[21] In naming it trip hop's eighteenth greatest album, John Twells and Laurent Fintoni of FACT Magazine wrote: "What sounds like it could have been a self-indulgent victory lap for (back then) one of the UK’s most notorious stars is somehow a coherent, exemplary document of a peculiar time in British music.