and shock you out of apathy and just make you think––that's the sense of hope," they noted, singling out "Everything is Vibration" and "The Weight of It All" as highlights of "their strongest album yet", giving it ratings of 8/10, 7/10 and 8.5/10. In a review of their album launch gig, Bandwagon also noted that the album "doesn't just see them at their most sonically intrusive — they're pissed off." Time Out Singapore'''s editor Iliyas Ong called August is the Cruellest a "seething, fire-breathing monster", declaring this "soundtrack for our times" "The Observatory's – and possibly the local scene's – tightest and most mature effort to date". Interviewing the band in TODAY, Kevin Mathews called August is the Cruellest a "multi-layered work", while he declared it "their most accessible of their recent releases" and "progressive rock with a conscience" that "succeeds at every level" on his blog.The Straits Times music correspondent Eddino Abdul Hadi gave the album 4/5, noting how it is "full of heartfelt anthems" and features "some of their most visceral and strident anthems to date". Eddino highlighted the songs "You Have No Heart" and "Wait For The Real Storm" as stand-outs, comparing "Low's layered harmonies" on the former to his Humpback Oak tunes. Jun Sheng Ng of Juice magazine described August is the Cruellest as an "immediate counterpoint to the prevailing spirit and sentiment widespread through the city" soon after Singapore's golden jubilee celebrations, noting that it "paints a landscape of desolation [and] the infertile and impotent wasteland we are mired in". Observing that the songs "Everything is Vibration" and "The Weight of It All" reflect the "group’s effort to return to or construct a Southeast Asian or Singaporean sound", with their quotes from Yan Jun’s poetry and use of traditional Chinese instruments like the guzheng and dizi, Ng criticised how "they are unavoidably dwarfed by the already heavy weight and influence of Eliot’s". Honeycombers praised August is the Cruellest as an "audial commentary on the looming, cataclysmic destruction of the earth" and a "revolutionary record [that] challenges a negative status quo that many have refused to acknowledge". Released on CD, cassette, double vinyl and digitally, August is the Cruellest was launched at the band's acclaimed The Substation gigs on 18 and 19 March 2016, with special guests Dharma and SA Trio and featuring covers of The Cure and Talking Heads. On 9 March 2016, a black-and-white