Rudyard Kennedy from AllMusic gave the album a positive review saying; "[Joe] Camilleri and company may borrow many of the same ingredients that James Morrison uses to make his music -- blues, soul, and R&B, as well as flashes of gospel, country, folk, and even Brill building pop -- but the trick is in mixing those well-worn ingredients together and coming up with something new. That's where Black Sorrows show that they're fit to be mentioned in the same breath with artists like Van Morrison and the Rolling Stones. Every song on Hold On to Me sounds like it could be a classic (and classy) radio staple, without sounding like a copy of anything else. Not only is Hold On to Me's literate songwriting (by Camilleri and lyricist Nick Smith) superb, but the playing is also uniformly excellent (and, at times, positively inspired), and vocalists Camilleri and Vika and Linda Bull are soulful and gritty throughout. Hold On to Me deserves to be remembered as more than just an Australian classic -- this is a record that deserves to be heard and hailed by music fans the world over."
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