 "Billboard" described the album as a ""winning collaborative combination [that] makes "Before the Poison" even stronger than its 2002 predecessor, "Kissin' Time," but with production and arrangements that are minimalist, dark and desolate"".Allmusic described the album as ""poetic and unnerving; it stands alone in her catalog in the same way that Broken English did—but this time, on the other side of the mirror"".In his review for "The New York Times", Jon Pareles wrote that ""Most of the songs are elegiac, and Ms. Faithfull infuses them with desolate memories"".