With These Hands (Alejandro Escovedo album)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[11]
The Austin Chronicle	[12]
Calgary Herald	[13]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[14]
MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide	[15]
(The New) Rolling Stone Album Guide	[4]
Uncut	[16]
Vancouver Sun	[10]

The Chicago Reader stated that Escovedo's "warm, slow-bubbling melodies are given alternately dense, sumptuous, and spare treatments that help the ballads flutter and the rockers rock."^[17] Trouser Press praised the duet with Nelson, labeling it "classical-folk balladry."^[18] Miami New Times called the album "a grim and sprawling masterpiece that weds his rough-hewn baritone with classic rock and roll riffs and the elegiac ambiance of vintage country weepers."^[19] The New York Times considered the album to be the best of Escovedo's first three, writing that it "doesn't try for comfort, but for stoic acceptance."^[20]

The Philadelphia Inquirer determined that Escovedo "employs a blunt rock attack softened by the calm, considered observations of a natural poet."^[21] Entertainment Weekly opined that the "multi-textured roots-pop ... would be utterly beguiling if it weren’t for his unresonant, plain-as-dough voice."^[22] The Calgary Herald declared that "Alejandro is on a roll, arguably the most original voice in America today, a man whose heart and soulful music aches with a sense of being that is a beauty, however bruised, to behold."^[13]

AllMusic wrote that, "if With These Hands doesn't break much new ground for him, it shows he's still in full command of his considerable gifts as a musician, and it's an impressive achievement."^[11] Reviewing the 2003 reissue, The Austin Chronicle called the album "dense with guests, guitars, and every musical spicing save for mortar and pestle."^[12] Uncut thought that "it’s a suitably raucous affair, though the full band tends to swamp Escovedo’s dusky timbre occasionally."^[16]