[8] Reviewing in 1978 for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau called Pink Flag a "punk suite", praised its "simultaneous rawness and detachment" and detected a rock-and-roll irony similar to, but "much grimmer and more frightening" than, the Ramones.

[20] In a 1978 Trouser Press review, Ira Robbins said that "Wire [push] minimalism to new heights" and that the band "dredges up images of...beat poetry--short fragments of impressions set to music."

"[21] In a retrospective review, Steve Huey of AllMusic opined that Pink Flag was "perhaps the most original debut album to come out of the first wave of British punk" and also "recognizable, yet simultaneously quite unlike anything that preceded it.

"[9] Retrospectively, Trouser Press called the album "a brilliant 21-song suite" in which the band "manipulated classic rock song structure by condensing them into brief, intense explosions of attitude and energy, coming up with a collection of unforgettable tunes".

[22] Pitchfork writer Joe Tangari summarized the album as "a fractured snapshot of punk alternately collapsing in on itself and exploding into song-fragment shrapnel.

[31] Hüsker Dü bassist Greg Norton has listed Pink Flag as one of his three favorite punk albums of all time.