with portents of recrimination". Reception Critical response Go-Go Boots received positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 78, based on 25 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". AllMusic editor Mark Deming complimented its noirish themes, stating "The craft of Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley's songwriting is as strong as ever, drawing believable characters and giving them lives that make dramatic sense". Deming noted an "impressive sense of dynamics" in the band's music and commented that "There are moments where Go-Go Boots recalls Exile on Main St., another album that makes much out of feel and the way musicians play off one another". Rolling Stone writer Jody Rosen described the album as "a raggedy revision of classic southern soul" and stated "It's a slight shift from DBT's usual muscular alt-country, but the rest is familiar: great storytelling [...] hinged to choruses that lodge in your cranium". Sean McCarthy of PopMatters viewed it as an improvement over their previous album, The Big To-Do, stating "the statements aren’t nearly as boisterous, the mood is more consistent, and the characters that occupy the songs are more fleshed out". Peter Watts of Uncut praised the band's "writing absorbing tales of smalltown characters and setting them to raucous, life-affirming music", calling it "a more restrained affair, a country-soul stew populated by brooding ex-cops, frustrated movie stars, wife-murdering preachers and sweet old ladies". However, Slant Magazines Jonathan Keefe criticized the band's songwriting and found Hood's observations "literal and tin-eared", writing that "Go-Go Boots aims for a soulful, introspective vibe, but it ends up as the dullest album in the Truckers's catalogue". Joseph Viney of Sputnikmusic wrote unfavorably of its musical style, stating "A majority of the songs keep to the same tempo and elicit little variety". Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot commented that "a little more variation would’ve been welcome", but gave it three out of four stars and complimented its "acoustic-flavored country and soul colors". Pitchforks Stephen M. Deusner viewed the album as a departure from the "rock noise" of their previous albums, "indulging [Mike] Cooley's country jones as well as the band's more acoustic tendencies". Deusner called it "a more dynamic record" than The Big To-Do, noting "a greater textural range, from the noir ramble of 'Ray's Automatic Weapon' to the spidery tension of