[3] Mojo wrote that its "tunes about finding love, rejecting losers, and criticising corrupt systems are a patchwork of assorted American pops",[6] and Uncut felt that "the countrier [Giddens] keeps it, the better".

[9] David Browne of Rolling Stone wrote that the album "occasionally suffers from its lofty goals [...] but on her most outward-looking record, Giddens melds the past and present, writing a bold new future for herself in the process".

[10] Glide Magazine's Jim Hynes stated that the album "embraces pop, rock, blues, jazz, and gospel" and is "the crowning achievement of her three recordings so far", leaving listeners "wondering if there is anything she can't do".

[11] Katharine Cartwright of All About Jazz found that the album "focuses on Giddens as a songwriter, in a variety of idioms" and is "yet another extraordinary offering from a great American musician whose work is consistently and superbly 'beyond category,' to quote Duke Ellington".

Each song feels like a costume she dons for the duration of the track" and that she also "seeks livelier rhythms and vocal styles infused with jazz, country, and zydeco".