Collis believed Trust displayed Costello at his "acidic best", with "instant classics" such as "Clubland", "New Lace Sleeves" and "From a Whisper to a Scream". Reviewing for Uncut in 2003, Jon Wilde found the album "less instantly arresting" than Get Happy!!, but nevertheless contained "a binge of great songwriting", summarising: "Showcasing some of [Costello's] most violently acerbic writing, with the Attractions at their most pathologically inventive, Trust boomed and slammed and whispered with sly, creative intent." In The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), Rob Sheffield commented that the album "still marks Elvis's summit as a singer, songwriter, and miserable-Irish-bastard pin-up boy." Later reviewers acknowledge Trust as one of Costello's lesser-known works that warrants reappraisal. Some also wrote that the album contains both "complexity" and "sophistication" that the artist's earlier LPs lacked. Writing in 2006, Treblezine Ernest Simpson noted that Trust lacked the "standout successes" of the artist's prior albums, yet all of the LP's songs contained a "sophistication" that those works lacked, including the absence of an opening track that began with Costello's voice before the band joined in. He ultimately deemed it "probably the most diverse and yet consistently great album that Elvis & the Attractions ever released". AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine agreed, arguing that it is Costello and the Attractions' "most impressive album". In a piece commemorating the 30th anniversary of its release, Sheffield named Trust Costello's best album, one that remains "his funniest, his wisest and his most rocking". Writing for its 40th anniversary, Rob Smith of Ultimate Classic Rock, on the other hand, acknowledged the record contained both highs and lows and concluded that it falls between being a classic and a dud. Costello's biographers have also praised Trust as one of his finest. St. Michael writes that the songs offer "greater breadth" than Get Happy!!, while Clayton-Lea places the lyrics amongst his best and examines the diverse musical styles as showing Costello could exhibit a wide range of musical genres. Thomson states that although it is often viewed as a bridge between the artist's younger, angrier works and his more elaborate, humane works of the mid-to-late 1980s, Trust has "enough strong performances and lyrics that make it stand on its own". He hails the first side and the "miniature masterpieces" of "Watch Your Step" and "New Lace Sleeves", but finds the second side slacks, with the different genre experiments displaying a "desperate attempt