Trouser Press thought that "better songwriting and fatter arrangements carry the ebullient opener, 'The Thing', into sly cuts like 'Vigilante' and the solipsistic 'Me'."[7] CMJ New Music Monthly wrote that the album "shows the band as determinedly campy as ever, playing the kind of richly instrumental, overly opulent '70s jazz-pop that made the Association so famous."[11] The Austin Chronicle concluded that "fans of pink elephants, shag carpeting, and swizzle sticks will sway their velvet-clad booties quite righteously to Powerful Pain Relief; everyone else will miss the point entirely."[12]
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said that "the tacky (not funny enough to be called kitschy) collection includes the title track, a phony-sounding, Dee-Lite-style love song; the insipid Sly Stone-ripoff, 'World of Summer'; and 'Vigilante', a laughable attempt at menacing, blaxploitation-film badness."[13] The Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph deemed the album "a wildly funky brand of lounge music that contains more soul than anything Lawrence Welk ever did."[14]
AllMusic wrote that "the band evolved their loungey sound away from a Combustible Edison bossa nova vibe to more rock but still created a smooth, cocktail mood."[10]
