"As an artist easily criticized for facetiousness, Wainwright has made a remarkably open and heartfelt record here, his droll observations springing naturally from the absurdities of living and dying, rather than being contrived to amuse or appall ... Surprisingly, for an album that spends most of the span of its 15 tracks considering mortality, it's never maudlin and rarely as cynical as his earlier work. More often it's self-effacing, celebratory and, even in its darkest moments, oddly comforting".