and adventuresome territory. ... The result is a program of numbers that resonate across all manner of invigorating wordplay with a jazzy, stoned ambiance." In Heavy Metal, Lou Stathis wrote that XTC's oft-applied "too clever for their own good" tag was "criminal horseshit" and deemed the album their finest work yet. Creems Jim Farber took issue with the political songs, namely "Melt the Guns", and said "The only problem is that the music and vocals of Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding are so entertainingly odd, they tend to deflate the stern-faced lyrics. ... As a whole, XTC may not shake, rattle and roll – but they do sputter, twitch and gyrate, and sometimes that can get you through the night just as well." Mark Dighton of The Michigan Daily opined that "there isn't really much wrong with English Settlement" apart from being "uncomfortably far from their best work." He praised its "lyrical intelligence" and added that most of the songs "would benefit greatly from a more adventurous and upfront attack." Retrospective English Settlement continues to be regarded by many critics as the band's finest album. Chris Dahlhen of Pitchfork awarded the album's 2001 remaster a perfect score, saying that the music had aged well, and wrote: "English Settlement catches that moment, as they change from a young band to a mature one: this is the pivot on which their entire career hangs, and a vantage point from which both ends of it make sense. It's timeless." Brett Milano of the Boston Herald called it "the band's masterpiece". Conversely, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune deemed the album excessively long, "with 15 songs instead of, say, the best 10." AllMusic's Chris Woodstra felt that "English Settlement seems more a transitional album than anything else, although the textural sound of the album is quite remarkable, indicating the direction they would take in their post-touring incarnation." Stereogums Robert Ham evaluated the album as the fifth-best of the group's discography. He criticised side three of the vinyl as "an absolute throwaway" that could have jeopardised the record "if the songs surrounding them weren't so damn good." English Settlement was voted number 884 in the third edition of Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). In 2002, it was ranked number 46 on Pitchforks list of "The Top 100 Albums of the 1980s". Contributor Dominique Leone wrote: "this double-LP was something of a sonic