The box set's release was conceived by Sanctuary Records as part of a comprehensive reissue campaign to capitalise upon the recent success of The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click), which had been roundly praised as a "return to form" for the band.

In 2004, Sanctuary issued expanded, remastered editions of the band's first four albums—Live at the Witch Trials (1979), Dragnet (1979), the (mostly) live Totale's Turns (1980), and Grotesque (After the Gramme) (1980)—as well as the first career-spanning "greatest hits" compilation, 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong.

The release of The Complete Peel Sessions was slated for summer 2005 to arrive alongside another "deluxe" reissue of the band's acclaimed fourth studio album, Hex Enduction Hour (1982).

"[8] Named the "Reissue of the Week" in NME, the compilation was reviewed by Rob Fitzpatrick, who said: In a more authoritarian country than our own—say France—the very idea that one obsessive individual could, over 26 years, freely spend thousands of pounds of public money recording the absurdist ramblings of a man stumbling through a career that's clearly little more than an attempt to avoid getting up for work in the morning would, understandably, be met with angry, perhaps vicious, condemnation.

Although Goddard felt the set's overall range in quality was "desperately eclectic, even by the Fall's abstruse standards", it was nonetheless "hard to imagine a more satisfying or comprehensive career overview than this.

[16] The Sun critic Simon Cosyns named it among the year's 11 best box sets on a list that was unranked aside from the top spot, designated for Blue Guitars by Chris Rea.