Black Rainbows received a score of 91 out of 100 on review aggregator
Metacritic based on seven critics' reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
Uncut described it as "an inspired left turn", while
Mojo stated that "the music, which is characterised by extraordinary switches in style, reflects the diversity of the archive, morphing from bleepy electronic and futuristic
R&B to churning
garage rock with distorted megaphone vocals".
Record Collectors John Earls wrote that
Black Rainbows "magnificently roars around garage rock,
jazz and even, on Erasure,
Black Flag hardcore", concluding that "although Bailey Rae is hardly prolific – this is just her fourth album – she's worth the wait". Jordan Bassett of
NME remarked that the album "swings from crunching
glam-punk to skronking experimental jazz that wouldn't sound out of place on
David Bowie's
Blackstar. There are left turns, and then there's this."
MusicOMHs John Murphy found it to be "a huge change in direction for Corinne Bailey Rae, a big, sprawling album that bounces between genres and flies off in directions you'd never expect".
Jon Pareles of
The New York Times opined that Bailey Rae "boldly jettisons both pop structures and R&B smoothness to consider the scars and triumphs of Black culture" and its "songs flaunt extremes: noise and delicacy, longing and rage". Allison Hussey of
Pitchfork felt that "it sounds like a departure but feels like a renaissance", and the "softer turns on
Black Rainbows feel nearest to Rae's earlier material, but those, too, subvert expectations". Reviewing the album for
AllMusic, Andy Kellman compared it favourably to Bailey Rae's earlier work, writing that "although
Black Rainbows is a uniquely conceptual work and sticks all the way out from" her prior albums, it is "at least as personal" as them, observing that "contrary to her reputation for making pillowy adult contemporary R&B, Bailey Rae started in a punk band that was hard enough to be courted by Roadrunner Records" and "
Black Rainbows taps into that spirit more than once". ==Track listing==