“Album of the Week… A dozen bittersweet and rough-hewn originals (including a co-write with Barry Goldberg — the pianist in Bob Dylan’s group when Dylan famously went “electric” at Newport in 1965 — on the opener “I Hated to See You Go” and a song he wrote with the late Duane Jarvis, “All You Need”), all which make for a striking listen. Along with working with the Flying Burrito Brothers, driving a truck for Neil Young and playing drums for decades, Lee has carved a unique niche for himself in the alt-country, acoustic post-modern honky tonk world. Fans of Steve Forbert, Townes Van Zandt, Gram Parsons, Guy Clark, Phil Cody and Greg Brown will dig Lee’s strong fourth album.”
Jeff Schwachter / Atlantic City Weekly

“It’s pretty damn fine. Phil Lee is a weathered, wizened troubadour, and he sounds like the sort of guy you’d cross at your own peril. But his lyrics are strong and paint evocative pictures. And the musicianship and arrangement is a tasty balance of laid-back and tight-as-a-duck’s ass. The songs all sound as if they were cut with all the effects knobs turned to zero: no bullshit studio trickery for this guy. And that approach suits him well, on songs like the NSFW “Blues in Reverse,” which is sexy, sassy and swaggering all at once…engaging presence”.
Bill Kopp/Musoscribe

“Brash and literate and full of one-liners. He’s like the love child of Bob Dylan and Joan Rivers.”
Peter Cooper / The Tennessean

“His career highlights read like a warped, Beat Generation country/blues rebel…The Fall & Further Decline Of The Mighty King Of Love is another unconventional album from Nashville’s favorite maverick…subversive humor…The band is tight and the backup vocalists (The Taryn Engle Singers) are sprightly, near heavenly.”
Robbie Gerson / Audiophile Audition

“A roadhouse rounder who for many years supplemented his meager gigging by making meat runs to Tampa, while cutting one of the very best singer-songwriter albums ever recorded here:  2001’s You Should Have Known Me Then. Lee has just recorded another, The Fall & Further Decline of the Mighty King of Love…It’s a slow burner of a record…The record peaks in a one-two punch of pure ribald joy: an irresistible rave-up called “I Like Everything,” powered by cooing call-and-response vocals and Jen Gunderman’s dizzy Farfisa organ, which begs for go-go dancers doing the Hully Gully; and a delightfully slithery rumba, “She Don’t Let Love Get in the Way,” which showcases Bennett’s light-fingered cantina-band licks.  In a perfect world, they’d earn Lee the breakthrough he’s deserved since his early days in 1970s Los Angeles.”
Jim Ridley / Nashville Scene

“Must hearing for those who proudly love it left of center.”
Chris Spector / Midwest Record Review

“The Mighty King of Love is back, sounding as much like Dylan’s twisted kid brother as he ever did, and hauling along with him a particularly luminous cast of Nashville’s finest…He started writing relatively late in life but there’s two generations of great music absorbed into his bones and it seems to flow right back out of him with a fresh twist that is pure Phil Lee…Witty, wicked, compassionate, profane, misanthropic…Phil Lee and his friends wear their supreme musicianship lightly and this album is a street ahead of most things you’ll hear this year; it has a joie-de-vivre that no amount of jokily bitter lines can disguise.”
John Davy / Flyinshoes Review