Midnight Rose's

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[13]
The Buffalo News	[14]
Robert Christgau	[15]
The Cincinnati Post	[12]
Dayton Daily News	[11]
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide	[7]
Orlando Sentinel	[16]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[17]

Newsday stated: "In the tradition of the Ohio Players and the other '70s funkateers they grew up listening to, Royal Crescent Mob takes a conscious stand against the notion of significance... As long as Royal Crescent Mob persists with this bizarre modesty, they'll be one of rock's best kept secrets."^[18] The Orlando Sentinel wrote that on the album's best track "the group ... abandons its funkateering and comes up with some delightfully loopy rock. 'Drunkard's Nose' combines a New Orleans rhythmic feel and swampy horns with country-flavored licks and one of the most original subjects ever for a rock song—the nose of the title and alcoholic's deteriorating looks."^[16] Trouser Press determined that guitarist Mr. B "colors the songs in with cogent flashes of aptly aimed guitar as the rhythm section sets the rhythmic clock in motion."^[9]

The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that "the only chink in the Mob's armor is that some of its songs exist only as one-dimensional grooves, with Ellison wisecracking over them."^[19] The Houston Chronicle opined that, "where the [Red Hot Chili] Peppers thrash and bash and peel their clothes off in concert, the Mob layers melody, lyrical wit and subtle grooves to the attack, never more evident on Midnight Rose's."^[20] The Austin American-Statesman concluded that, "where so many bands with similar influences ... seem to think that establishing a style is mainly a matter of extending cliches toward the point of parody, the Mob has real songs to go with its real grooves."^[21]