Steve McQueen had it been included. Stuart Maconie's Protest Songs review said the song "reflects darkly on the impoverished North East". The album's closer "Pearly Gates" was among the ten tracks listed in NME'''s "Alternative Best of Prefab Sprout" in 1992. Maconie felt the song "goes to places most pop records have never heard of; quaint and strangely moving with all the emotive power of a half-remembered hymn from schooldays". The song has been described as a precursor to the final tracks on the band's next album, Jordan: The Comeback, which contains themes of mortality, religion and the afterlife. Release The eventual release of Protest Songs was announced by Kitchenware in March 1989, originally provisionally set for a May date. The album was finally issued on 19 June 1989, 15 months after From Langley Park to Memphis and nearly four years on from its original intended release date. Prefab Sprout undertook no promotion for Protest Songs; the album's press release noted "the band are currently in the studio recording their brand new album, Jordan: The Comeback". Critical reception Among contemporary reviews, Stuart Maconie of the NME considered the album "incredible", adding "Ten songs, by turns sparkling and opaque, carefree and weighty, that confirm the Sprouts as a band, and Paddy as a writer, as amongst the handful of treasures we have". Phil Sutcliffe of Q described Protest Songs as "their most durable collection to date" but also considered it "an odd combination of modesty and overweaning ambition – extremes successfully moderated on Langley Park". Writing in Spin, Robin Reinhardt declared Protest Songs "a record only the most intellectual or most delirious can understand. Lush, airy harmonies that whisper erratic, ambiguous lyrics make the music seem like an afterthought". Nick Robinson, reviewer of British music newspaper Music Week, considered that "college book poetry and passive pop songs have a distinct charm". The Irish Independent opined "McAloon's songwriting skill is enhanced by the sparseness of the surrounding soundscapes", and recommended the album to anyone who may have previously found the band too convoluted or "clever". The chorus of "Dublin" ("Dublin Dublin, home of pretty Coleens/Dublin Dublin, nurse of such bitter dreams") was derided in some Irish reviews. The Sunday Tribunes Michael Ross described the lyrics as "daft" while Ferdia MacAnna of Dublin's Evening Herald commented "Coleens? Begorragh, Paddy, you're a bit of a cute hoor". Among retrospective reviews, AllMusic critic Jason Ankeny