it a very favorable review and stated that "Trail of Dead has made the album of its career." Yahoo! Music UK gave it eight stars out of ten and called it "A frequently astonishing album that combines bruising rock and limp-wristed flourish in almost equal measure." Playlouder gave it four stars out of five and called it "a delicately violent piece of art." The A.V. Club gave it a favorable review and stated that "With Worlds Apart, the band takes a confident, blind leap toward a potentially confounding future, and lands solidly and triumphantly." Spin gave it a B and stated that "Between these boy-noise roils you can see how much the band want to be their generation's Yes." Under the Radar gave it seven stars out of ten and stated that "The band's musical scope has significantly expanded... and for the better." Drowned in Sound gave it seven out of ten and said that the band might have " missed the bullseye. But that's no reason to yell "sell out!", or to deride them as poseurs." Other reviews are either average, mixed, or negative: Mojo gave the album three stars out of five and stated that "for all that bombast... there's a disappointing, un-Texan restraint." Uncut also gave it three stars and said it was "no less viscerally thrilling [than its predecessor] but pursues a number of ear-bogglingly unlikely paths." Blender likewise gave it three stars and called it "Unexpectedly clean-cut... the time-signature shifts and feedback swirls that earned [the band] minor adulation are sidelined in favor of pushy, arena-sized choruses." Likewise, Alternative Press gave it three stars and called it "The least pretentious--and most accessible--thing AYWKUBTTOD have ever released. That's probably because it sounds a lot like your record collection." Tiny Mix Tapes also gave it three stars out of five and said, "All these flowery production choices can at times be quite seductive, despite the glaring mishandling of the vocals astride them." The Village Voice gave it a mixed review and stated that "the band relies almost entirely on Keely, who dabbles in major-chorded piano balladry, a Southern rock opera complete with down-home piano and backup voices, whispery Beth Orton-style trip-hop, and high-pitch heart-on-sleeve emoting. It's all so precious; let's hope they still break shit live." Drawer B also gave it a very mixed review and said that "Trail of Dead sounds utterly reinvigorated yet dangerously reinvented."