This Is What the Truth Feels Like outside the top 10. The following week, "This Is What the Truth Feels Like" dipped 54 positions, the week's largest drop. In Australia, the album debuted at number six, becoming her third consecutive top-ten solo album. "This Is What the Truth Feels Like" was the week's second highest debut, and was present for two weeks before departing the chart. On France's SNEP albums chart, it entered at number 44, becoming her lowest debut behind "The Sweet Escape"s peak at number 33. The album fared moderately well on Switzerland's Hitparade, where it became her second highest performing album, peaking at number
What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World Boston Globe" described the album as one of the band's "most enjoyable and lively efforts in recent memory", "The New York Times" noted that "What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World" "strikes a note of pop concision and maturity, building on what worked on ‘The King Is Dead.’ Lyrically, there are fewer thistles and minarets and palanquins—and, musically, less digressive excess—than once made up the Decemberists’ trademark style." Jeremy Larson of Pitchfork Media was a detractor, bemoaning the album as "overlong and under-ambitious", though appreciating that listeners "start to see Meloy himself more than ever". Larson also wrote highly