Baby (White Hinterland album)

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	74/100[3]
Review scores
Source	Rating
Rolling Stone	[4]
NME	[5]
Boston Globe	Favorable[6]
AllMusic	[7]
Pitchfork	7.2/10[8]

Rolling Stone gave the album three and a half of five stars, noting the vocal range Dienel displays on the album, "singing in operatic quivers, howling yelps, haunting harmonic layers and even full-on vocal fry without showing any seams."[4] NME also gave the album three and a half of five stars, saying Baby's sound took previous influences and created something "warm-blooded, rich and at ease with itself. Something that takes the bits of Mariah – ‘Emotions’, ‘Fantasy’ – that didn’t make you want to kill children and wraps them up in the indie tastes of post-Dirty Projectors America." The review criticized the absence of a hook in places, but said "These are quibbles, though, given how much Dienel seems to be pulling ahead of her overcrowded field."[5] Reviewing the album in the Boston Globe, Marc Hirsch said, Baby "seems to construct itself as it goes, incrementally expanding from the bits and scraps of piano and multi-layered unaccompanied vocals of opener 'Wait Until Dark' and culminating in the rollicking, if skewed, roll of penultimate track 'Sickle No Sword.'"[6]