"Certainly, Hail to the Kings! is an enthusiastic celebration of Chicago blues in all of its electric forms. Wilson gets to duet with Shemekia Copeland on the bawdy "The Wine Talkin'," the group revives Jimmy Reed's "I'm the Man Down There," they descend into a slow groove on "Sugar Daddy," and offer several hyper-charged shuffles. The interplay is elastic and gritty, as is the sound of the record; maybe the surface is crystal clear, but the levels are still happily pushed into the red".