"Urban Hymns" received widespread critical praise upon its release. "Melody Maker" hailed it as "an album of unparalleled beauty so intent on grabbing at the strands of music's multi-hued history". Ted Kessler of "NME" praised "Urban Hymns" as the band's best album to date, adding that its first five songs alone "pound all other guitar albums this year – bar Radiohead's "OK Computer" – into the ground with their emotional ferocity and deftness of melodic touch." Similarly, "Rolling Stone" critic David Fricke deemed it "a defiantly psychedelic record — soaked in slipstream guitars and breezy strings, cruising at narcotic-shuffle velocity — about coping and crashing". The "Los Angeles Times" Sara Scribner noted its "lush, intricate, ethereal sound" and felt that The Verve had "delivered an achingly beautiful record that's just desperate enough to never get boring."