Kicking Cans

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[7]
MusicHound World: The Essential Album Guide	[6]

The Los Angeles Times wrote that "throughout the recording, Caymmi's intimate voice and romantic guitar establish a haunting presence."^[12] The Sun-Sentinel determined that "Caymmi exquisitely showcases his feathery voice, which hovers gracefully over sumptuous, spacious Brazilian-flavored jazz arrangements."^[9] The Huntsville Times noted that "Caymmi's signature sound is his soft, floating tenor, accented by sparkles of his acoustic guitar."^[13]

The Virginian-Pilot called Caymmi "a versatile, consistently inventive tunesmith ... to his credit, he has shown no tendency to contemporize his sound with modernistic cliches."^[10] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette stated that "Caymmi's chanting vocals ride on a wave of melodic acoustic guitar and light percussion, a style common to northeast Brazil."^[14] The Lewiston Tribune deemed Caymmi "silken and sublime," writing that "the songs are expressions of moods and feelings not defined by words."^[15]

AllMusic wrote that "the shifting time signatures and skewed melodies conspire to keep the listener comfortably off balance—the music goes where it has to go, like a river meandering lazily through a rain forest."^[7]