His commitment to sobriety since his last album release is often mentioned in interviews and reviews, and has sparked lyrics evoking change as well. "The Boston Globe" stated, "With a high-pitched, almost Neil Young timbre to his voice, Slim sings that 'I'm going through changes now' – said changes amounting to a highly listenable rebirth." But "The Guardian"'s Harriet Gibsone wrote "Forged in the aftershock of a series of seismic, life-altering events, Pennsylvanian songwriter Langhorne Slim’s fifth album finds him at full throttle... For all the potency of Slim’s feelings, however, the album’s downfall is that it is musically and lyrically as well-trodden as his battered, beating heart."