Tom Moon, for "Rolling Stone", describes "Brown Album" as "precisely the type of weirdness that Primus have been peddling for years – progressive-rock instrumentals camouflaged in the tattered rags of punk and the absurdist narratives of a junior Zappa", although he notes that the songs "all wind up sounding the same... Galumphing processionals more notable for their robotic persistence than for their musical invention."