The rest of the songs are, with one exception, all new and co-written by Faithfull with help from some of her long time collaborators like Nick Cave and Ed Harcourt.

[1] The album's title is a reference to the famous phrase "negative capability" used by Romantic poet John Keats in 1817 in a letter to his brothers.

[4] Writing for AllMusic, Mark Deming explained: "The performance on Negative Capability comes from a vocalist who has learned a lot more about love, heartache, and the good and bad places that fate can take you than the 18-year-old ever imagined she could know.

"[6] Cameron Cook of Crack Magazine wrote: "On her 21st solo album Negative Capability, her husky voice grazes atop a pruned collection of 10 songs, some new, some revisited, but all bearing her trademark haunting aura.

It doesn’t define ‘Negative Capability’, however; the record might read like a last testament, but it bristles with warmth and life, a 40-minute reason to stay positive.