Music writer Robert Christgau interpreted its first six tracks as "heavy irony shading over into murderous rage, with refurbished arena-rock to slam it home". He cited the opening track "We Take Care of Our Own" as an example, writing that "it's perversely anti-political to lay any other interpretation on the opening [track], which cites places 'From the shotgun shack to the Superdome' where we—meaning the U.S.A. so many Americans weren't even born in—documentably haven't taken care of our own." Steve Leftridge of PopMatters found the characters in the songs "less elusive about whom to blame for their troubles, cutting out the middle figures like foremen and hiring men and taking on the real culprits unambiguously." He compared the album to Springsteen's "The Rising" (2002), writing that if that was his "9-11 album", "Wrecking Ball" is his "Occupy album".