[15] The Los Angeles Daily News wrote that "most of the cuts ... wistfully evoke the longing for lasting love—a topic the artist's masticating, caramel-and-chewing-tobacco vocals are sublimely suited to.

"[9] The Los Angeles Times praised the "eerily loping rendition of 'Mack the Knife', as utterly unexpected as it is deliciously different from the Louis Armstrong/Bobby Darin swing approach.

"[8] Rolling Stone deemed the album "a first-rate Gilmore collection, full of enchanted cognition, major emotions and pure Texas dust.

"[5] The Chicago Tribune determined that "the West Texas legend brings a strange beauty to everything he sings, his voice an otherworldly warble that echoes the pathos of Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers, while at the same time floating dream-like above it all.

"[17] The Guardian wrote that "his spare, sinewy voice resonates like a high wind on the prairie, and on this evidence Gilmore has never been in better shape as writer, musician and picker of material.