[1] According to Josh Frank, Terminal Love "had clearly been attempting, at least, to be a pop album", noting that the songs were shorter and featured "standard variations on the verse-chorus-verse structure".

[2] Jason Ankeny of AllMusic wrote that the album "suggests the work of Captain Beefheart; indeed, Magic Band/Frank Zappa collaborator Eliot Ingber appears on several tracks.

"[3] "The album" wrote Jim Allen for Bandcamp Daily, "was no wistful collection of gently introspective ballads: Its songs sport unorthodox structures, shifting tempos and time signatures, and arch, witty lyrics referencing everything from Freud, Adler, and Reich (“Holding the Cobra”) to time and space travel (“Alpha Centauri”) and physical entropy (the title track)."

"[4] Rolling Stone called Terminal Love an "uncomfortable album" which is populated by cynical and "bloodless characters".

Those same arrangements that seemed so off-putting in 1974 feel rich and comfortable now, and the passing of time has leant Terminal Love a delicious hipster twang it couldn't possibly have enjoyed as a new release.