The re-release prompted a new round of critical reception for "Queens of the Stone Age". At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the reissue received an average score of 78% based on 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Greg Moffitt of BBC Music remarked that "Although less varied and dynamic than "Rated R", "Queens of the Stone Age" simply crackles with energy. At its best, it's just as electrifying, even if it doesn't maintain the dizzying momentum which rolled its follow-up to instant glory. Musically, it draws deeply from diverse pools, echoes of '70s hard rock reverberating alongside alternative, grunge, and stoner rock sounds, the latter of which mainman Josh Homme pioneered with his former band Kyuss." Chuck Eddy of "Rolling Stone" rated it 4 stars out of 5, saying that "When the debut by Queens of the Stone Age sneaked out in 1998, it seemed like a lark: Josh Homme and Alfredo Hernández from Kyuss, tired of frying sludge metal in the desert sun, were now subjecting reborn acid rock to mechanical repetition. Soon, QOTSA would become a real band, with real hits. But they'd never again groove like this, with gurgling Teutonic drones swallowing Stooges chords and intercepted radio cross talk." For "Consequence of Sound", reviewer Karina Halle gave it a B grade and complimented the "very slight hand" of the remastering job: "Comparing the two albums side-by-side, you can hear a nice tonality in the re-release, a sharper, crisper quality that just wasn't holding up in the 1998 version. However, part of QOTSA's vital sound is the thickness of Josh Homme's guitar, the fuzz and grain that permeates from each riff and solo. That is still present, it's just a more precise distortion." She also praised the added tracks, saying "All three of the bonus tracks slink in perfectly with the rest of the album, adding to the overall feel instead of subtracting from it."