On jambands.com, Brian Robbins wrote, "Here we find Penque using his time between New Riders gigs to try on many hats – bassist, vocalist, bandleader, songwriter, and producer – and he wears them all well.... His songs on Only Road Home range from entertaining and cryptic tales to feeling like disarmingly open journal entries.

Penque is definitely a believer in the songs-come-first-and-the-jams-will-follow school... All in all, Only Road Home is a great effort from a band that doesn't try to deny their influences, but instead treats them as lessons well learned.

"[6] On Sleeping Hedgehog, Deborah Grabien wrote, "With Only Road Home, Ronnie Penque — a killer bassist who happens to play for the New Riders of the Purple Sage — has managed to pull something out of the air, out of the studio, out of time.

It's there in the heartfelt lyrics, the clean easy production values, the echoes of pedal steel and the 'hey put your boots up' twang of the lead guitar.

It's there in Penque's lead vocals, which somehow evoke touches of Delaney Bramlett and Van Morrison and, yes, Jerry Garcia and John Dawson, while still magically remaining entirely distinct and his own: cheerful, occasionally plaintive, always accessible.