"Pre-Millennium Tension" received positive reviews from critics, who found the record's music ambitious, eclectic, and threatening. "USA Today" reviewer Elysa Gardner called it a dazzling trip hop album and Tricky "prolific, innovative and fearlessly eccentric", comparing him to American musician Prince. In the "Chicago Tribune", Greg Kot said Tricky had transcended the boundaries of trip hop by drawing upon and manipulating a number of styles, including ambient, drum and bass, hip hop, and dancehall, in his evocative production. "Few records have more artfully blurred the boundaries between sensuality and terror, fascination and fear, seduction and confusion", Kot wrote. David Bennun from "The Guardian" argued that Tricky had deconstructed hip hop clichés and "gangsta-isms" into bizarrely malcontent songs on what was an "astonishing record – not a great one, but a very good, very awkward and very strange one". "Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau found his use of hip hop soundscapes compelling on a record that "comprehends and inhabits the dystopia of everyday life more radically than Wu-Tang could conceive". He qualified his praise by adding that the success of Tricky's formula relied heavily on Topley-Bird. Simon Williams of "NME" was less impressed, writing that the album's last few songs "seemed to suffer from the very fury which makes the rest of the record work". He singled out "My Evil Is Strong" and "Piano" for overindulging in cynical attitudes and monotonous music. David Browne was more critical in "Entertainment Weekly". He believed Tricky's incorporation of more soul and reggae elements than "Maxinquaye", as well as his use of spasmodic beats and "revue-style singers", had weakened his "trademark trip-hop" style and resulted in a more theatrical, "pretentious" record.