The music of
Room on Fire has been described as
indie rock,
garage rock revival, and
new wave.
The album received generally positive reviews from critics: on the review aggregating website
Metacritic, it currently has a score of 77 out of 100 based on 31 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Ben Thompson of
The Observer gave it all five stars and said, "This is a feeling that can be inspired only by people making the absolute most of an opportunity to communicate: cutting through all the rubbish that surrounds them to make a clear and memorable artistic statement. And that the Strokes should have managed to do such a thing at this stage in their careers, is - I think - an achievement of real significance." Greg Milner of
Spin gave it a score of eight out of ten and said that its "similarity to its predecessor ultimately bespeaks a purity of vision, not a dearth of new ideas." In his Consumer Guide, Robert Christgau gave the album a three-star honorable mention () while picking out two songs from the album ("Between Love and Hate" and "What Ever Happened?") and stating simply, "Narcissism repeats itself." Not all reviews were positive, however. Raoul Hernandez of
The Austin Chronicle gave the album a score of two stars out of five and stated that "even the half-hearted retreads... cashing in on the notoriously unwashed NYC quintet's debut can't muster a wink." Iain Moffat of
Playlouder gave the album only one star and said of the Strokes, "There's little of the pop sparkle that shone through the likes of 'The Modern Age' and 'Last Nite' even when - as with 'You Talk Way Too Much' - they're rewriting old material, and Julian's vocals are, to be blunt, awful, sounding uncomfortable to record and rather complacently nasal." In 2013,
Room On Fire was listed at number 360 on
NMEs list of
the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2018, the BBC included it in their list of "the acclaimed albums that nobody listens to any more".
Reappraisal In later years,
Room on Fire has received critical acclaim and is regarded by fans as one of the Strokes' best albums. In 2021,
Pitchfork included
Room on Fire on its list of album review scores they "would change if they could", upgrading its score from 8.0 to 9.2 out of 10, though they stated this would not change the actual score. Lane Brown of
Pitchfork praised it as a "different, better album with major improvements over its predecessor". Scoring a 0.1 bonus point more than
Is This It,
Room on Fire is commended in marking confident progress and "at least partially thwarting rock history's most inevitable backlash." ==Commercial performance==