LeMay as "otherworldly", uses multiple layers of vocal harmonies and instrumentation. "Sand" ends abruptly, with the sound of a tape reel running out. The 11-minute "The Glow", which acts as the album's climax, is made of separate segments, disjointedly connected. "The Glow" varies in sound fidelity, and uses elements of noise and drones. The track ends softly, with organs and emotional vocals from Elverum. Neil Kelly of PopMatters described the track as having an "epic genre-bending strut". "Karl Blau", in the style of 1950s pop, was partly inspired by a dream Elverum had about one of his musical collaborators, Karl Blau. Drum solos solely comprise the three-minute track "Drums", described by Sputnikmusic's joshuatree as a "cacophony". "The Gleam" is a pop song filled with noisy audio feedback; Elverum's vocals are barely audible amid the noise. "The Gleam" uses drones similar to "The Glow". "Between Your Ear and the Other Ear" uses elements of freak folk and audio feedback. The album's closer, "Organs", uses a swell of guitars and keyboards, described by LeMay as "ominous". Critical reception Contemporaneous In Heather Phares of AllMusic's undated review, they said the band "presents delicate, almost folky melodies wrapped up in and surrounded by waves of droning, distorted guitars and organs". Phares compared tracks from the album to those of other artists, but affirmed that the band's similarities "feel like tributes", not plagiarism. In Matt LeMay of Pitchfork review at the time of the album's release, it was rated 9.2 out of 10. LeMay praised the album's originality and how it broke rock music's conventions, providing an "element of surprise" he found missing in rock. Pitchfork later listed the album at number seven in their year-end "Top 20 Albums of 2000". Retrospective Sputnikmusic's joshuatree reviewed the album in 2008, praised the "unpredictable nature of the album", and called it Phil Elverum's second-best album, after The Glow pt. 2. Multiple publications released reviews of the album following its 2013 reissue. Neil Kelly of PopMatters wrote "in hindsight, it really is a miracle that music with these kinds of dynamics would see the daylight". Kelly praised the album for its sonic diversity, and for the production of "The Glow"; he called the album a "feast of inspiration to revisit time and time again." Spectrum Culture Joe Clinkenbeard described the album as similar to Elverum's other work in that it "thrives on chaos, quiet and in juxtaposing the