James Hunter of "Rolling Stone" gave the album four stars out of five and commented that the band had "found a vital place between art-metal seriousness and pop pleasure. It begins right away with the trancelike 'Regular John', a track that layers Homme's yelping guitar accents over a fuzzy groove. While other metalheads play around with sequencers, Queens of the Stone Age have something a little more heated and classical in mind. The rest of the album charges on with its compelling contrasts between Homme's papery vocals and the surrounding rampage. Sometimes the songs explore pure heaviness, as on the wall-rattling 'Walkin' on the Sidewalks'. But more often they thrillingly toy with elements like vocal hooks ('You Would Know') and metal frenzy ('How to Handle a Rope') without giving in to either." Writing in "Spin", Joe Gross scored "Queens of the Stone Age" 7 out of 10, saying "While there's really nothing in this collection worth trading in those Melvins albums for, it's strangely compelling to hear how Homme and his cohorts killed many an afternoon in a thick THC haze with Can's "Tago Mago", then worked it into their patented pedal abuse."