The rest of the record showcases advancements in the Underworld sound: both "Rowla" and "Pearl's Girl" feature club-ready abrasive beats and basslines, while "Blueski" and "Stagger" incorporate live acoustic guitar and light, melancholic arrangements, respectively.

Anya Sacharow of Entertainment Weekly described the album as "no dumb-bass dance music", adding that Underworld "know how to expand the frenzy of techno and jungle and then retreat to an ambient cool".

[6] Melody Maker called Underworld "modest/cynical/smart enough to borrow jungle's finest trademarks",[14] while NME praised them as "smooth of touch, sleek of footing and downright slippery of rhythm" and concluded that they "breezily persevere in their quest for Western groove domination.

"[9] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic said that Second Toughest in the Infants "carries the same knockout punch of their debut, Dubnobasswithmyheadman, but it's subtler and more varied, offering proof that the outfit is one of the leading dance collectives of the mid-'90s.

[19] In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Paul Simpson said that "Second Toughest in the Infants endures as a landmark album, spotlighting Underworld at their creative peak, and remaining an important document of an era when experimental, cerebral electronic dance music received significant mainstream attention.