a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 74 out of 100, which indicates "generally favourable reviews" based on 17 reviews. Some reviewers felt that Here Come the Tears sounded like later Suede material, while others found it to be more in line with Dog Man Star. Erlewine noted that, the album is "what Coming Up would have been if Butler had stuck around"; The Irish Times writer Brian Boyd said that if "this had been the follow-up to Dog Man Star, things might have been very different". Dave Simpson of The Guardian said it was not far removed from the albums Suede created without Butler's involvement. Hot Press writer Shilpa Ganatra said the Tears "shouldn’t be compared to Suede. They waived that right, however, when they managed to make Here Come The Tears sound exactly like Dog Man Star". Moten said the Tears "borrow a lot from that earlier partnership", with the album coming across as "far inferior to Suede's classic collection, 'Dog Man Star. She added that the listener "ultimately come[s] away thinking Butler and Anderson haven't done anything as The Tears that they didn't do better as Suede". BBC Music's Jamie Gill at the album's best it was as "fearless and ambitious as Suede's masterpiece Dog Man Star". The staff at Entertainment.ie said Anderson counted Butler's "epic guitar lines" by "writing his most vivid and stirring songs for over a decade". Olga Bas of This Is Fake DIY said the album's first half had a "marked lack of truly impressionable lyrics. Not to say that happy songs cannot have good wordplay," though some lines "cannot help but inspire laughter at the silliness of it all". She was more complimentary for the second half, describing it as "much more somber and melancholy". musicOMH writer John Murphy saw an improvement with Anderson's lyrics, as he's "moved onto more substantial topics". Barnett, however, said that anyone "expecting the much-tromboned Anderson-Butler reunion to bring about a massive renaissance in Brett's lyrical prowess is going to be disappointed". Yahoo! Music reviewer Sharon O'Connell said that Anderson was "still penning lyrics about cigarettes, coffee, mascara and magazines, like he's just beamed in from the Bronze Age", an observation that Tangari and Andy Gill of The Independent also made. Pete Cashmore of NME called Here Come the Tears the "best album you'll hear this