Light Me Up received generally positive reviews from music critics. At
Metacritic, which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an
average score of 74, based on five reviews. Alexey Eremenko of
AllMusic wrote that
Taylor Momsen "com[es] across as the strongest and bitchiest female vocalist to front an alt-rock band since
Garbage's
Shirley Manson" and added, "If the band had explored their bluesy leanings more,
Light Me Up could have been a small-scale revolution, but even as it stands now, it's still a wicked good record." Rick Florino of
Artistdirect stated that "Momsen's ability to mix a soulful swagger with a
heavy metal grit makes for one of the best debuts of 2011", concluding that "The Pretty Reckless strike the most perfect balance between sexy swagger and brilliant songwriting." At
The New York Times,
Jon Caramanica described the album as "terrific fun: salacious, convincingly muscular, unnervingly rowdy." Leah Greenblatt of
Entertainment Weekly opined that the album is "clearly built from the
doll parts of [the] grunge goddesses [of the 1990s]—a sometimes too-slick conceit that Momsen's thousand-
Marlboro growl still manages to sell surprisingly well."
Virgin Media's Ian Gittins noted that the album is "sparky and vivacious enough to hint that Ms Momsen, should she so wish, may even be able to give up the day job."
IGN's Chad Grischow expressed, "Despite some lyrical clumsiness and overbearing production, there is a lot to like about The Pretty Reckless on their debut; enough to leave you hoping they work out the kinks on their sophomore set." John Longbottom of
Kerrang! commented, "While lyrically there's nothing explicitly offensive, there are enough risque lines here to raise a few eyebrows, and enough good songs to prick a few ears." ==Commercial performance==