"[citation needed] Matt McCaughan plays drums on many of the album's tracks.

[6] The Tucson Weekly wrote that "Portastatic seems to be what happens when an aging punk rocker and his ambitious musical vision 'mature': passivity, depression and terminal boredom.

"[7] Phoenix New Times called the album "a multilayered opus of pop precocity.

"[8] Paste deemed it the band's most underrated album, calling it "a downcast jazzy pop record that dabbles with electronic minimalism and features some of [Mac] McCaughan’s best song writing.

"[9] SF Weekly wrote that The Nature of Sap "finds the normally manic Superchunk frontman in an extended soporific spelunk through the caves of his waking dreams.