[4] John Leland and Ira Robbins wrote in Trouser Press that the EP "offers dogmatic politics redeemed by idiosyncratic Wire-type songs.

Kicked along by drummer George Hurley, each abbreviated blurt of rhythm serves as a backdrop for the rants of bassist Mike Watt and guitarist D. Boon.

The best is the apocalyptic “Paranoid Chant,” in which Boon screams, “I don’t even worry about crime anymore.”"[9] According to Robert Christgau - who commented on it in his review of the band's first full-length album - the EP "could pass for speed-rock".

[4] A retrospective review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine for AllMusic found the EP to be "a startlingly coherent set of primal minimalism -- a cross between Californian hardcore punk and the succinct experimentalism of Wire.

"[11] In a 2022 review of their second LP, Huw Baines says of Paranoid Time, "all the pieces are in the right places, from Watt’s wandering bass to Boon’s history-lesson-with-footnotes rants and lacerating leads".