The Chicago Tribune opined that "terrific three-part harmonies and a brace of killer melodies make Tiger Trap one of the year's more consistently pleasurable albums."[7]
Gail O'Hara for Spin commented on the band's "top-drawer melodies" and called their music "spiffy pop that'll outlast this year's rhetoric".[8] Both her review and others, including one in Billboard, pitched their sweet romantic pop as if in opposition against more angry riot grrrl and rock made by women like Bikini Kill and L7.[8][9]
In the 2014 book Gimme Indie Rock, Andrew Earles called the album "quintessential", and wrote that Tiger Trap "packed each song with at least one pop hook."[10]
Retrospectively, Tiger Trap has been held up as one of twee pop's most essential releases. In a 2005 essay called "Twee as Fuck", Pitchfork's Nitsuh Abebe "highly recommended" the album and highlighted two of its tracks, "Puzzle Pieces" and "My Broken Heart".[11] In 2014, The A.V. Club's Paula Mejia dubbed it a "Possible gateway" into the genre.[12] The following year, the site's Jason Heller wrote that the album "embodies twee," but added that "it’s also a forceful, potent, consummately melodic complement to the more strident sounds of riot grrrl that were raging around them at the time."[13]
On a 2013 Complex list, Trap placed No. 40 out of indie rock's 50 best albums of the 1990s. Writer Philip Cosores saw its impact carry into numerous later groups like Allo Darlin', Veronica Falls, Colleen Green and Swearin'.[14] Writing for The Stranger in 2016, Sean Nelson credited it with "set[ting] the aesthetic standard for NW indie pop forever after."[15]
Critical rankings for Tiger Trap
| Publication |
Type |
List |
Year |
Rank |
Ref. |
|---|
|
Decade-end |
The Best Indie Rock Albums of the '90s |
2013 |
40 |
|
|
The 25 Best Indie Pop Albums of the '90s |
2022 |
-- |
|
| "--" indicates an unordered list. |
