"'Keep Your Courage' [is Merchant's] first [album] of all-new material in nine years. It's also her most beautiful in decades ... Along with her core band are members of Lankum and another Irish group, Lúnasa, a horn section, woodwind, backing vocalists and singer Abena Koomson-Davis, with whom Merchant duets on "Come On, Aphrodite". Overall, it sounds cohesive, but varied too. And, given the epic cast, remarkably uncluttered, with its focus on the voice and the song".