 At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 79 out of 100 based on 26 reviews.Critics like "Rolling Stone" (who described it as "grandiose music from grandiose men"), "Q", "NME", the "Los Angeles Times", and "The Boston Globe", among others were quite vocal in their praise.Following its 22 November 2004 release, the album debuted at number 1 in 34 countries, including the US "Billboard" 200 (with sales of 840,000), the UK Albums Chart, and the Australian ARIA Charts.