"Pitchfork" awarded the album the publication's "Best New Music" accolade, and later placed it fourteenth on a list of the fifty best albums of 2007. "Pitchfork" staff writer Marc Hogan wrote that "Cryptograms" "is alternately murky...ethereal, amorphous and incisive", calling the second half of the album "vastly more accessible" than the first. Mike Diver of "Drowned in Sound" found the album's two halves "absolutely coherent; the sequencing allows the listener space to breathe at the most opportune moments, and its leaps from ambiance into adrenaline-soaked enthusiasm...are worthy of celebration." "Tiny Mix Tapes"s Paul Haney enjoyed the "psych-crazed pop" found in the second half of "Cryptograms", citing "Spring Hall Convert", "Heatherwood", and "Strange Lights" as exemplary tracks. Nick Sylvester of "The Boston Phoenix" considered the first half of the album to be irregular in style and quality, but found that this gave the transition between its two halves "a black-and-white-to-Technicolor moment (or TV to HDTV, if you prefer): "Spring Hall Convert" combines Deerhunter's come-up and come-down into the most uplifting rock song I've heard in a while, an explosion of gritty Velvet downstrums and swirling vocal harmonies."