However, in an interview in 2004 guitarist Charles Bissell said that exhaustion and loss of confidence in their writing was a more decisive reason: "We did spend a couple years dealing with lawyers and labels.

However, by the time the album was ready the group decided that it did not fit with the typical sound of the bands on the Drive-Thru label and instead opted to release it on Absolutely Kosher Records, run by another friend of theirs, Cory Brown.

[12] Heather Phares of AllMusic suggested that the "sprawling, shifting" nature of The Meadowlands "perhaps [reflected] the fact that it took four years to create", and concluded that "when the results are this good, the time it took to make the album is more than justified.

"[4] Ryan Schreiber of online music magazine Pitchfork stated that the album "exemplifies what every fan hopes for when a band announces a reunion or returns from more than a half-decade of silence.

[12] Dele Fadele of NME stated that "The Wrens are indeed a revelation: not only for some unique achievements within the stifling parameters of indie-rock, but for a raw emotionalism, well offset by vitriolic sarcasm... Beguiling, affecting songs are then shot through with noise cloudbursts, psychedelic harmonies and glissando melodies.

"[6] However, Q was far less enthusiastic, describing The Meadowlands as "a tortuous travelogue in the life of a band who've snacked so long on the fuzzy end of the indie rock lolly, they've forgotten the euphoric qualities that made them merely a half-decent proposition to begin with.