"Outside the Gate" was not released until 27 June 1988 and entered the UK Albums Chart at number 92, staying for just one week. It was panned by critics. "Sounds" said of the album: "It's a stodgy, inconclusive LP that fails in all but the most basic of senses to achieve its end, leaving us feeling soured and unimpressed". "NME" shared the same point of view and depicted it as "a private breakfast of ideas, depicting poor old Jaz wading through quicksand with his jeans rolled down yet again. Worse ... he seems to be wandering off in exactly the same direction". Retrospective reviews have remained largely negative; David Jeffries of AllMusic said that "pallid synths poorly imitate orchestras, the complex song structures are just tedious, Coleman acts as if he's Freddie Mercury and David Bowie mashed together, and none of the throb, thunder or heavy riffage so important to the Killing Joke name is to be found." Adrien Begrand of PopMatters called it simply "disastrous".