In his review for AllMusic, William Ruhlmann wrote that Suspending Belief contains Webb's "most straightforward, plainspoken writing yet" and that the songwriter "seems better able to perform his music now than at any time in the past.

"[1] Ruhlmann continued: Suspending Disbelief doesn't, like other Webb albums, sound like a series of unrelated songs sung by an adequate vocalist but waiting for better singers to get at them.

At 46, that artist clearly has been around the block a few times, and he's no longer interested in waxing poetic about cakes left out in the rain or space travel; these songs are decidedly down to earth.

If the reminiscences leading to the conclusion that he's "Too Young to Die" stake his claim to currency, he actually spends most of the album looking back maturely and somewhat sadly, when he isn't taking others to task for their bad behavior.

And Webb, whose voice has deepened and coarsened from the wheezy Oklahoma tenor he exhibited 20 years earlier, has gained in confidence and control as a singer, enabling him to put across his material better than he ever did before.