Across the Water (Bernard Allison album)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[12]
Fort Worth Star-Telegram	[13]
Ottawa Citizen	[14]
The Penguin Guide to Blues Recordings	[15]
The Press of Atlantic City	[16]

Exclaim! wrote that "Bernard's guitar burns and blisters harder and faster across much of this release and his tone is to die for."^[9] Billboard praised "the bluesy Hendrix riffage of the title track."^[17] The Hartford Courant said that Allison is "an inventive guitarist, sprinkling crunchy power chords, gritty solos and funky wah-wah lines all over the album."^[11]

The Washington Post opined that, "at times, Across the Water sounds like an early-'70s Savoy Brown album with all the lumbering bombast and broad gestures such an analogy implies."^[18] The Ottawa Citizen concluded that Allison "seems to be making a grab for the Top-10 ring of pop music success and, for better or worse, he's got too much pure ability and blues chops to make it work."^[14] The Fort Worth Star-Telegram determined that "Allison's blues can get generic at times, but far more often he is convincing."^[13]

AllMusic wrote that "rock, funk, and straight-ahead blues are all covered with ease."^[12]