"Slow Life" itself received generally positive reviews; Pitchfork Media called it a "stunning closer" to "Phantom Power", while PopMatters described the song as "the kind of schizophrenic fun we've come to expect from the band but ... less showy and eager to please, as they control themselves enough to make the jarring, contradicting styles much easier to digest". Stylus Magazine stated that the "great" track "achieves symbiosis between techno and guitar-pop better than anything else they've done before". The BBC agreed calling "Slow Life" the band's "most successful mindrattling techno attempt so far". The song was placed at number 46 in the 2003 Festive Fifty on John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show.