Like Dylan's previous two studio albums, Triplicate features covers of classic American songs recorded live with his touring band and without the use of overdubs.

Following Shadows in the Night in 2015 and Fallen Angels in 2016, Triplicate was Dylan's third album in three years to consist entirely of "standards" from the Great American Songbook.

[2] Although the songs could have fit on two CDs, Dylan wanted each disc to be only 32 minutes long as he believed some of his previous albums had been "overloaded", resulting in a "thin" audio quality when pressed on vinyl records.

[12] Triplicate has the most minimalist cover art of Dylan's entire discography: only the album's title is featured, printed in white lettering and "Goudy Text" font against a glossy, deep purple background.

Among the claims in Piazza's essay is the notion that Dylan is presenting songs that "you may have thought you knew to the final decimal point" but which "you may feel you are hearing for the first time, transfigured".

Mike Powell of Pitchfork said that "the ballads, beautiful as they are, sometimes feel static, bereft of that innerverse opened by singers like Johnny Hartman or, say, Willie Nelson, whose own standards album Stardust remains a high point for projects like this".

[26] In a review entitled "Bob Dylan should stop crooning and get back to writing songs", Neil McCormick of The Telegraph argued that "Triplicate is an act of self-indulgence only of interest to completists".

[30] NJArts critic Jay Lustig considered Triplicate a "mere footnote" to Dylan's career but identified "When the World Was Young" as his favorite song on the album.

[31] When critic Ray Padgett ranked all 52 of the songs from Dylan's American Songbook albums in 2017, six of his top 10 choices were from Triplicate.

The highest rated was "The September of My Years" at number two, about which Padgett wrote, "Accompanied by little more than some steel guitar and [Tony] Garnier’s bass (there it is again), Dylan delivers one of his best-ever vocal performances".

In an article accompanying the list, critic Jon Dolan wrote: "Dylan croons, his gruff moan giving these lovelorn riddles an existential weight, as if, having lived deep into his seventies, he’s wondering more urgently than ever how to make his life matter.