Melody Maker wrote: "
The Rapture is a fascinating, transcontinental journey through danger and exotica". Describing the
arrangements, they added, "it's a vivid
cornucopia of lush
instrumentation,
mandolins vying with
cellos and
bells, sweeping
strings describing starlit oceans and sirens calling from jagged rocks, and attics that hide secret worlds". Steve Malins of
Vox also liked the album. He said, "The title-track is a sublime melodrama recalling the
experimentation of
Peepshow and 1982's
Kiss in the Dreamhouse", before concluding with this sentence, "
The Rapture represents an intelligent twist on familiar Banshees obsessions". Liz Buckley of
Sun Zoom Spark also praised it, writing, "How is a band that first formed almost two decades ago able to remain both vital and celebrated? Answer:
Metamorphosis". Buckley also declared that "the album is able to excite the hairs on the back of your neck".
Select gave it a rating of four out of five, hailing the band as "purveyors of scary
pop par excellence". Matt Hall noted the ability of the group for "trotting out jolly tunes about mental breakdown, love bordering on obsession and severely dislocated relationships." The reviewer characterised
The Rapture as a "fine little
Russian doll of a record", and said, "Under the
keyboard lines, swelling strings and OTT
percussion, at the centre of every song is a nugget of disquiet that keeps you listening again and again." Writing in the 2004 edition of
The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Mark Coleman and Mac Randall described
The Rapture as "a lackluster affair".
AllMusic retrospectively rated the album four out of five stars, saying: "The surprise is that it's a career highpoint" as "Siouxsie, Severin and Budgie rediscovered their chemistry". ==Track listing==