"[2] For Trouser Press, Eric Hage wrote, "It's a tribute to Buckner's rugged individualism that he emerged from his major-label dance to put together The Hill, one sprawling, 34-minute track based on early 20th century poet Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology (character pieces in which the dead in an Illinois graveyard ruminate on their often tragic lives)...

The moody ruralism and tragic themes fit snugly in his canon; he crafts some gorgeously heart-piercing numbers from the ancient grief of such poems as 'Julia Miller' and 'Elizabeth Childers' and adds various sorts of haunting ephemera, including slow, rusty organ and wisps of feedback.

"[3] Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote, "The Hill is a sterling example of Buckner's gifts as an interpretive performer, an area he doesn't explore often, and he brilliantly inhabits the characters of Masters' poems, especially the drunken and luckless 'Oscar Hummel,' the eloquently lovelorn 'Reuben Pantier,' and a mother to be shorn of all hope, 'Elizabeth Childers.'

With The Hill, Richard Buckner began stepping out in a new creative direction, and if the album isn't as immediately effective or consistent as his first three offerings, at its best this is as powerful and poignant as anything he's ever released.

While all the songs, whether instrumental interludes or clipped acoustic ballads, are of the bare-boned variety, Buckner’s yearning delivery and the musical assists from Calexico’s Joey Burns and John Convertino turn these tracks into moving and memorable expressions of significant consequence.