"Runner shakes out as one of this band's most subtly varied albums, and it can be an immersive listening experience if you give yourself over to it. Outside of "Harps" and the energetic opener, "On and On", the songs work more on a textural and sensory level than as melodically memorable set pieces, but this does nothing to diminish their beauty or the craft evident in their construction, nor the fact that this is the kind of music that can wrap you up easily in something as simple as a compelling chord sequence, as it does on the title track. The Sea and Cake may never be the thing that everyone is talking about, but here, they're as reliable as ever, and that has its own kind of value".