[2] Writing in The Straits Times, Yeow Kai Chai compared Living Water to Nick Drake's Pink Moon and Vashti Bunyan's Just Another Diamond Day and wrote: "With an observant eye for nature's ways and an ear for the rhythms of the heart, [Lay] intuits life's bountiful lessons.

"[10] Philip Sherburne of Pitchfork praised "Home" as "a good glimpse of what makes Lay’s music special" and argued that "Living Water is shot through with a kind of ragged hope—not optimism, exactly, but a determined belief in the power of that life force to pull us all toward something like transcendence.

[13] Mark Deming of AllMusic noted that the more complex sound did not come at the expense of a sense of intimacy, and wrote that "she creates tunes with a simple grace that's a superb match for the lyrics which revel in the glorious mysteries of the world around us.

[13] Pitchfork's Erin Osmon praised "Death Up Close" and "November" and argued that Lay's "vision is clear-eyed, poetic, and for all the ways she channels the greats ... she also chisels her own name in the canon".

[8] Writing in Clash, Wilf Skinner commented that "August is best at its most meditative, even if its gravity belies a certain goofiness", and described the album as "more self-assured and hopeful" than Living Water;[14] while Hannah Siden of Exclaim!

[16] In June 2020, Lay collaborated with Steve Gunn to cover Blaze Foley's "Clay Pigeons" as a fundraiser for the Black Visions Collective.

[24] Ben Niesen of Atwood Magazine wrote that Geist "documents [Lay's] continued transformation into a bona fide singer/songwriter", noted the influence of Celtic music and the work of Anne Briggs, and likened tracks to songs by Brian Eno, Bert Jansch and Joni Mitchell.

1 as offering a valuable insight into Lay's influences, and described covers of Sibylle Baier's "I Lost Something in the Hills" and Osees's "I Am Slow" as "tracks that stand out the most for providing the listener the least to grab onto.