Science Fiction received universal acclaim from music publications for befittingly concluding Brand New's influential career.
[6] However, they did not officially release any new material until a single entitled "Mene" in 2015, a song originally written for The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me.
"[14] Spin believed the song's meaning "explores trauma’s permanence through a naturalistic lens, all geothermic vents and abyssal seas.
[19] On "Out of Mana", Brand New "envisions life as a video game, with death acting as the final boss", featuring lines such as "Oh praise player one, infinite lives, the time will come up.
"[20] "In the Water" was musically compared to the "graceful love child of Red House Painters and Built to Spill" and contains lyrics believed by Spin to be "Brand New meta-commentary ... a self-flagellatory portrait of the artist calling himself out on his own bullshit."
[18] Pitchfork wrote that the song's guitar work evoked "turning into white ash, like 'Jesus Christ' given a Disintegration Loops treatment.
[31] Vinyl pre-orders, including white and blue and red variants, were delayed due to pressing issues with the record label Procrastinate!
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 88, indicating "universal acclaim".
[38] Awarding the album a "Best New Music" designation, Pitchfork's Ian Cohen praised Science Fiction as "a wise and vulnerable conclusion for a rock band who were crucial in shaping a scene, a sound, and many emotions.
[47] Zoe Camp of Spin called it a "nostalgia-steeped, emotionally draining record" which makes for "a worthy (if bittersweet) send-off to one of the most brutally honest, forward-thinking rock bands of the new millennium.
"[17] Chris Payne of Billboard felt that the album establishes Brand New as "part of a lineage of constantly-shape-shifting, steadfastly fascinating experimental rock bands.
"[14] In Uproxx, Steven Hyden labeled Science Fiction as the "emo Abbey Road",[22] while Emma Garland of Vice called it "a fitting ending" to the band's career.
[21] Sputnikmusic stated that Science Fiction "obliterates already unreasonably high expectations while forming one of the best and most anticipated curtain-calls in recent memory.
[57] The band debuted material from the album live on September 9, 2017 at the High and Low Fest in San Bernardino, California, which Brand New headlined alongside Death Cab for Cutie.
[16][56][59][60] Their hometown show at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn was reported to have last-minute resale tickets upwards of $100 and fans lining up at the 6:30 p.m. doors time to purchase a limited edition venue-exclusive poster.
[56] The show opened with the band hidden behind what Spin described as "a massive, cage-like metal fence of LCD lights, similar to one Nine Inch Nails have used in years past".
After the band's reveal, the background screen was also utilized to display images of found war footage during "137" and cloud lightning during "In the Water".
[62] Brand New notably did not play much material from their first two albums, skipping popular single "The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows" (which Billboard theorized was because they "appeared generally disinterested in vocal harmonies") and performing only "Soco Amaretto Lime" from debut Your Favorite Weapon as an acoustic encore.