In comparing the album to the group's earlier work, "Pitchfork"s Zach Hooker said: ""Apple Venus" finds them picking up pretty much where they left off. Or maybe even a little bit before they left off." Stylistically, he regarded the album as the middle point between "Oranges and Lemons" and "Skylarking", calling "Apple Venus" "a little nestegg of excellent songs". "Rolling Stone"s Barry Walters wrote that the LP "packs the wit and nerve that made their rock snap but does it with brass, acoustic guitars, violins, woodwinds and minimal percussion. ... instead of evoking the Sixties, Partridge and Moulding suggest a timeless pastoral past rich with melody and subtlety." AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted: "Although there are similarities with the pastoral "Skylarking" or parts of "Nonsuch", there is really no comparable record in XTC's canon, given its sustained mood, experimentalism, and glimpses of confession ... ["Apple Venus"] easily ranks as one of XTC's greatest works".