Editors at AnyDecentMusic? aggregated 19 reviews to score this release a 7.8 out of 10. Editors at
AllMusic rated this album 4 out of 5 stars, with critic Mark Deming writing "
Cousin represents a genuine shift for the band as they've ceded some control over their recording process for a change", resulting in "a powerful, affecting work that once again shows how many great things Wilco can do". Scott Bauer of the
Associated Press called this "a deeply layered, musically rich record" where "the soundscape is so thick it feels like an aural impressionist painting, with layer upon layer of music melded together to create a sonic image". In the Indie Basement column at
BrooklynVegan, Bill Pearis chose this as one of the best albums of the week, telling readers who have not listened to Wilco in years that this is a reason to check in on their new work.
Exclaim! Clay Geddert rated this album an 8 out of 10 for showing "a fresh perspective on what their sound could be". Ryan Dillon of
Glide Magazine praised this music for "Wilco's most complex and evocative album in years" and blending artsy or avant-garde tendencies with accessible songwriting and he chose "Sunlight Ends" as one of the best songs of the week, calling it "a moody example of the band's experimentation, an electronic drum pattern sets the tone for dancing guitar strings and sinfully sweet vocals".
The Guardians
Alexis Petridis proclaimed
Cousin album of the week and gave it 4 out of 5 stars, stating that "no one comes to a Wilco album looking for carefree emotional uplift, but the anxieties expressed here feel different, very much the product of a writer 20 years older than the author of
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot". In
Hot Press, John Walshe gave this album an 8 out of 10, noting that this period of the band's sound "eschews the punkier elements of their DNA in favour of a more laid-back, countrified tone" and this mid-tempo tone results in "another stellar album from a band who seem permanently at the peak of their powers.". Ed Power of
Irish Examiner gave
Cousin 4 out of 5 stars, characterizing the music: "it's catchy and often very warm but full of the avant-garde wrinkles that have led critics to herald the Chicago outfit America's answer to Radiohead". Lauren Murphy of
The Irish Times gave the same score, calling it "Wilco's most progressive album in years, dappled with a sumptuous melancholic hue that drapes itself over songs such as Ten Dead and the sombre, minor chord swoon of Levee". A feature from
Louder Sound saw Sam Walton calling this the best Wilco album since 2004's
A Ghost Is Born and the choice to enlist Le Bon "the most elegant producer-led transformation of the past 25 years". John Mulvey of
Mojo rated
Cousin 4 out of 5 stars, praising Le Bon as "a trusted interloper who can unlock new dimensions for this most reliable but restless of contemporary American bands". In
The New Zealand Herald, Graham Reid called
Cousin "a gently deft approach to the experimentation that they've explored". Writing for
No Depression, Kyle Peterson calling this release not "a return to the grand statements of the late 1990s and early 2000s so much as a distinctive entry that still fits comfortably in the band's latter-day output". In
Paste, Eric R. Danton expressed disappointment with this album, calling it "underwhelming" in spite of select tracks that are success. Writing for
Pitchfork, Zach Schonfeld scored
Cousin a 7.1 out of 10 for recalling the earlier experimental period of the band's history and writes that it and previous album
Cruel Country "both peer out at a country infected with hypocrisy and moral rot"; editors at the site shortlisted this as one of the best albums of the week. At
PopMatters, John Garratt expressed that the band both experimented but also "played it too safe" on
Cousin, stating that, "when Wilco does get around to the surprising elements in Cousin, they pull them off with so much subtlety that you might miss them entirely".
Rolling Stone featured a favorable review from Will Hermes, where the critic praised the production and how "part of Wilco's magic is its mutability... and how artfully it always cleaves to Tweedy's narrative voice, one of the most companionable in modern song, even when he's channeling flawed characters, which he frequently is". In
Slant Magazine, Thomas Bedenbaugh credited Le Bon for this album having a more experimental style than previous Wilco releases and rated
Cousin 3.5 out of 5 stars. Michael Gallucci of
Ultimate Classic Rock called this work an "aural tour de force", continuing that "the music, drifting among the avant-pop playground Wilco has spent the past two decades traversing, suits the occasionally despairing, often hopeful mood". In
Uncut, Tom Pinnock scored
Cousin 4.5 out of 5 stars, praising the production and writing that this music is "deliciously weird and intoxicatingly angular, but it still sounds like a Wilco album, not a Le Bon collaboration". Michael James Hall of
Under the Radar scored this work an 8.5 out of 10, calling it "a complex and clever album". In the
Wall Street Journal, Mark Richardson emphasized the continuity this album has with Wilco's previous work, writing that the production "seems to lend a welcome tint rather than change Wilco's palette" and calls this the best album by the band since "at least 2015's
Star Wars".
Ultimate Classic Rock named "Evicted" the 18th best rock song of the year.
Uncut editor Michael Bonner included this album on his list of the best of the year. A 2024 ranking of all of Wilco's studio albums by
Spin placed
Cousin at 10 out of 15 and Al Shipley wrote that it "may have the most empty space of any Wilco album, pulling even further back from the restraint of
Ode to Joy. ==Track listing==