 Music" compared it to "Since U Been Gone", commenting its similarity in regard to vocals.Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" describes "Never Again" as a slightly harder and less immediate version of the entire "Breakaway" album.Sarah Rodman of "The Boston Globe" comments that the song "comes much closer, pleasingly so, to the polished angst and power chords of Alanis Morissette and Pat Benatar than it does to, say, "Gimme Shelter" or "Nebraska.""