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Hope on the Rocks received mostly positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns an averaged score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 71, based on five reviews. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called the effort "a satisfying set of strong songs". Jewly Hight of American Songwriterwrote that "Beer and partying once again play starring roles on Hope On The Rocks", but that it "comes off as rather objectifying". Joseph Hudak of Country Weekly wrote that the album showed "maturity" over Keith's past works. Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times surmised that "Keith has clearly become a skilled listener, a vital trait for any songwriter — or bartender." Music Is My Oxygen Weekly's Rob Burkhardt found, "Taken together, Hope On the Rocks, while perhaps a tad predictable, still contains the basic building blocks that have helped Toby Keith achieve the success he has today: not just the celebration of booze, but the making of great music, as well." Roughstock's Matt Bjorke wrote that "Hope On The Rocks is a lean 10 track collection and for my money, it's a great mixture of classic Toby Keith sounds", which the album seems "never over-produced or feeling like a record that was made to just be a couple radio singles and filler." He called it a "cohesive album and ranks right up there with Toby's best". Taste of Country's Billy Dukes criticized Hope on the Rocks as "a loud and sudsy collection of songs about beer, barrooms, heartbreak… and beer. Much like a Saturday night out at your favorite watering hole, it's rowdy and fun, but difficult to remember the next morning." Brian Mansfield of USA Today found that "Most of Keith's latest is a brawny drinker's paradise of horndogs, truckers and whiskey-running outlaws. But those shouldn't distract from its brooding country-pop, especially when Keith flaunts his inner Orbison on the title track".
