The band announced the release of the album's first single, "Well They're Gone", on their website on March 1, 2012, allowing visitors to download the track for free after entering their email address.

[7] Benjamin Aspray of PopMatters wrote "Like reformed alcoholics who were more fun when they drank, This Machine is alternately sullen and unconvincingly earnest, and inoffensive to a fault.

[...] As the appropriately titled The Dandy Warhols Are Sound—the pre-Nick Rhodes version of Welcome to the Monkey House—made abundantly clear, a stripping down does not become them.

[9] AllMusic, on the other hand, gave it a positive review, writing "It's the closest the band has come yet to something genuinely uplifting and irony-free – no small feat for these tongue-in-cheek provocateurs, but This Machine suggests that the Dandy Warhols are actually improving with age, which is an even bigger accomplishment.

"[8] Stephen Dalton in his review for the magazine Classic Rock writes that the band sounds "refreshed and rebooted" and the album "is possibly their best yet", despite ultimately being "a triumph of inventive arrangements and lush production over songwriting.