In late 2000, a split double vinyl single was released by Definitive Jux, containing three new songs by Company Flow and two tracks taken from The Cold Vein: "Iron Galaxy" and "Straight Off the D.I.C.".

An instrumental companion to the album entitled El-P Presents Cannibal Oxtrumentals was released on March 19, 2002, on Definitive Jux.

AllMusic contributor Victor W. Valdivia wrote: "Mainly, the album sounds as if it were the soundtrack for an unmade film, much as the work Eno made in the 1970s, since the tracks have a distinct cinematic quality that allows them to cohere and flow beautifully.

Many praised El-P's production work, with CMJ contributor Brian Coleman writing, "Producer El-P of Company Flow gives this Harlem-bred and Brooklyn-based vocal duo of Vast Aire and Shamar what usually sounds like a full goth orchestra perched in a dank basement, with thick synth strings, simulated outer-space found-sounds and choppy, pounding drums."

[12] Gavin Mueller of Stylus Magazine wrote about "The F-Word", a song addressing unrequited love: "Moments like these show not only the skill of Can Ox's MCs, but the potential for hip hop lyrics to work on as many levels as the finest English poetry.

The muted five-note motif in "Iron Galaxy"'s verses; the wandering keyboard lines and muffled vocal samples in "A B-Boy's Alpha"; the skittering percussion in "Raspberry Fields"; it all works towards making Vast and Vordul's tales of the Big Apple feel more like they're pulled from Day After Tomorrow-era New York than the present-day version.