An expanded, remastered double album was released as part of Record Store Day 2019 called 'Obey The Time'/'The Acid Guitar', it was a limited edition of 800 copies on Yellow and Purple vinyl.

After The Durutti Column moved further into embracing contemporary technology on their album Vini Reilly (1989),[2] the group's public profile was relatively quiet for the most part of 1990.

[5] Characterised by its usage of drum machine, unobtrusive piano and gently reverberated guitars,[8] the album is defined by how its synthesises contemporary styles that "create something distinctly different," according to Ned Raggett of AllMusic.

[11] Many of Reilly's percussion patterns on the album are not specifically acid house rhythms, instead reflecting earlier synth-funk and hard electro sounds, although, according to Raggett, "there's enough of the cusp-of-the-'90s about everything to show he wasn't dating himself.

"[7] The keyboard stabs on some tracks feature the "stuttering, choppy melodies" of techno music, while, according to Raggett, "Reilly's own knack for what suits a song best means sometimes it's more gentle acoustica and other times full-on electric shimmer and drive.

Reilly heard the line in a TV adaptation and used it because he felt it "captured exactly the feel of the work in progress," due to the album's acid house influence being a concession to contemporary music.

[6] In partial promotion of the album, The Durutti Column also played in Paris and London that month, with the latter gig featuring Reilly, Mitchell, Miller and a Chinese lute player performing several songs from Obey the Time among other releases.

[3] In a contemporary review for Select, Graham Linehan mockingly described Obey the Time as "music for films that will never be made" and "New Age for those who feel safer having the name of the band on the sleeve rather than the composer."

He felt the "near-comatose" album nonetheless provided several highlights, such as "Fridays", "Vino Della Cassa Bianco" and "Neon", the latter of which he compared to Love Tractor.

[8] Factory Records biographer James Nice later reflected the album "failed to repeat the artistic success" of The Guitar and Other Machines and Vini Reilly.

[5] Despite a rating of two stars out of five, Ned Raggett of AllMusic was very positive in a retrospective review, calling it "another fine Durutti release," and noting: "Where in nearly any other hands this would have been a pathetic crossover disaster waiting to happen, the end results are gratifyingly like what his compatriots in New Order did the previous year with Technique, synthesizing up-to-date styles to create something distinctly different".

[7] In The Great Rock Discography, writer Martin C. Strong described Obey the Time as "[h]ypnotic and holiday-esque (as if basking on a beach in ear-shot of an acid-house disco)".