The Mancunion saw the "creativity of post-punk" as being "evident throughout the record", while Muso's Guide described much of Red Roses for Me as "a whirlwind of revved-up folk punk".

[2][1] The band's approach of mixing traditional songs and ballads with frontman Shane MacGowan's "gutter hymns" about drinking, fighting and sex was innovative at the time.

For The Pogues are a gesture – a particularly bloody two-fingered one – aimed at all things considered current and fashionable in 1984... Theirs is a gut reaction to traditional music – and with it comes all the motion, intensity and vigour that has largely been lost to these songs since the early days of the folk revival in the Sixties.

The raucous surge and evocative noise that has filled the capital's pubs and clubs has come through the stark sobriety of the studio set-up to arrive intact in all its sweat-soaked beer-stained glory...

"[9] Awarding the album 3¾ stars out of five, Sounds said, "Red Roses for Me is a satisfyingly impure, purposefully imperfect and totally irresistible collection of lasting resentment, rebellious roars, watery-eyed romance and uproarious jigs...

[12] In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Mark Deming calls the album "good and rowdy fun", but feels that "on Rum Sodomy & the Lash and If I Should Fall from Grace with God, the Pogues would prove that they were capable of a lot more than that".