AllMusic gives "Powerage" a rating of three and a half out of five stars, stating that while "it is the most uneven of" AC/DC's 1970s material, the album still contained a "few genuine classics", specifically mentioning "Down Payment Blues" and "Up to My Neck in You". Edwin Faust of Stylus Magazine considers "Powerage" "AC/DC’s best album...because it isn’t simply about sex, drinking and tongue-in-cheek Satanism", but shows a band "growing up". In 1994, Bon Scott biographer Clinton Walker opined in his book "Highway to Hell" that "altogether, "Powerage" just seemed to lack the uncompromising coherence and relentless body and soul that was its predecessor's greatness." Band biographer Jesse Fink cites the album as containing "their best ever collection of songs" and deems it "a high point creatively for the three Youngs, an album arguably superior to the commercially successful Mutt Lange circuitbreakers that followed, "Highway to Hell" and "Back in Black"."