"New Boots and Panties!!" received overwhelming acclaim from the music press upon its release. Allan Jones in "Melody Maker" described the album as "a tense, harrowing account of urban degradation, that conveys with more vocal, musical and lyrical vehemence than any so-called 'new wave/punk' combo has yet been able to muster, the desperation and squalor of the social conditions (and the effects of those conditions upon individual personalities) it so provocatively illustrates." In "Sounds" Vivien Goldman gave the record a five-star rating, saying, "Lawless brats from council flats have finally found a voice that speaks from, of and about the people. A voice that combines passion with the vernacular 'she got into a mess with the NHS' – sage street advice, plus cinematic observation, plus humour." "Record Mirror"s Tim Lott observed that "if you can grapple with the sheer unorthodoxy of it it's easy to fall in love with for its quaintness, its limerick simplicity ... The character of "New Boots and Panties" is indomitable, like Dury. It's a curiosity piece and a pop album and a good joke and sometimes a bad pun and a shot of Bohemian romantics and a load of crap and totally fascinating." Roy Carr in the "NME" said: