Havilah (album)

The Age's Patrick Donovan observed, "the band's angry cacophony has partly given way to a cleaner, more upbeat sound with more melody and narrative-based songs... Elsewhere, the band's country influences come to the fore, as well as the cleaner playing of new guitarist Dan Luscombe... [they] may have mellowed a bit, but they're no less engaging."

On Metacritic, the album has a "metascore" of 77 based on 15 reviews, implying a "generally favorable" critical reception,[13] whilst it has a score of 7.4 out of 10 on the review aggregator AnyDecentMusic? based on 11 reviews.[12]

Tom Hughes of The Guardian called it an "outstanding record, and one with endless pleasures and pains to be wrung out of it" calling Liddiard "one of the few rock lyricists worth paying real attention to" adding that "he's a vocalist like no other, [...] his melodic ear never better than here".[5] Tiny Mix Tapes called the album "more humblingly [sic] good music at a time when rock music is more about being it’s-all-been-done humble", bemoaning their lack of popularity and adding that theirs "is the sound you need to get for right now, and it’s built to last well past that.".[19] Dan Draper of PopMatters wrote that the album finds the band "older, more bitter, and better than ever" calling Liddiard "one of those lyricists whose words have the weight of poetry"[9] Ned Raggett of AllMusic rated it at four-out-of-five stars and explained, "[they] have grown a touch more polished and focused with time, it's not at the expense of creating compelling music – if anything, [this album] even more clearly places the band as one of Australia's best rock bands ever."[14] Joe Colly of Pitchfork writes that "They're traditional in the way Black Lips are-- straightforward instrumentation, a healthy nod to the past-- but manage to dodge the pitfalls of revisionism with an unusual mixture of brute force, bleak lyrical content, and singer Gareth Liddiard's distinctive caterwaul. (Dude can impressively shift from a bark to a shriek to a roar in one solitary breath.) [...Listening to the album] is like making it through a powerful-but-disturbing film".[8]

More mixed reviews came from Q who said it was a "little too heavily indebted to fellow Aussies Nick Cave and The Triffids' late David McComb, even if that's not a bad place to be coming form."[6] Prefix magazine described it as "thickset blues rock" that "makes for opaque and impenetrable listening" decrying their perceived lack of innovation (in comparison to acts such as Women and Abe Vigoda) and their inability to "wallow in the same gloriously gloomy lows as, say, Come’s Eleven:Eleven or Neil Young's On the Beach" comparing the music to the "mid level depress-o-rock that The Smashing Pumpkins have been peddling on-and-off for the best part of two decades" and criticizing Liddiard's lyrics as "too often uninspired, and seemingly torn from a notebook full of juvenilia that should have been stuffed in the back of a firmly locked closet" despite being "witty" at parts[20]

Havilah was one of 12 nominees at the J Awards of 2008 for Album of the Year.[21] It was also nominated for the Australian Music Prize of 2008 (losing out to Primary Colours by Eddy Current Suppression Ring), making it the band's third nomination for the prize since its inauguration in 2005.