Response was generally positive, with Metacritic assigning the album an aggregate score of 80 out of 100 based on 10 critical reviews indicating "Generally favorable reviews".[1]
The Allmusic review by Sean Westergaard awarded the album 4½ stars out of 5, stating, "Although Ribot has always displayed a great sense of humor, it's on full display here in a way it hasn't really been before. Party Intellectuals is easily Ribot's most fun album to date and one of his best".[2]
PopMatters' Zeth Lundy rated the album 7 out of 10, saying,
Ceramic Dog is Ribot's first true rock band to call his own, but it’s also an experiment in accessible dissonance—a rock band that spikes the rudimentary nature of the form with aggressive improvisation and noodly turbulence ... The more challenging tracks on Party Intellectuals are the epic mood pieces that freak out in frame-by-frame slow motion ... While a lot of the tracks on Party Intellectuals delight in ripping conventions apart (or, in the case of those epic tracks, deliriously attempt to discover some new ones), most also allow for some truly batshit crazy guitar solos by Ribot.[3]
Track listing
All compositions are by Marc Ribot, except where noted.
