Field Music have been called one of the few bands to outlast the indie guitar band explosion of the mid-2000s. Describing the band as "a truly artful proposition in the pseudo-filled landscape of contemporary Brit art-rock", music blog "The Fantastic Hope" puts this down in part to their "un-self-conscious anti-fashion stance", arguing that Field Music's "wayward pop from the fringes of academia is one of the most worthwhile ways in which rock//indie/guitar music/white pop/whatever might evolve". Critics have compared their music to acts as diverse as Steely Dan, XTC, Prefab Sprout, Peter Gabriel, Scritti Politti, Talking Heads and Todd Rundgren. They have also been nominated for the Mercury Prize.