Simon Reynolds said the album was "translucent-sounding", with shades of the Durutti Column, Young Marble Giants and "Another Green World" by Brian Eno. AllMusic writer Chris True said that while "Seventeen Seconds" had come to be largely overlooked in later years apart from its single "A Forest", it nonetheless represented an important development for the Cure, capturing them becoming "more rigid in sound, and more disciplined in attitude", and anticipating the bleak lyrical themes that would become more apparent on subsequent Cure albums.