He felt that the band had finally solidified into a unit and that the record perfectly showcased their sound during that era more so than anything else they had recorded before, although he was very critical of the band's music and the noise rock genre at the time, going as far as to say:  Rob recorded a variety of television and movie dialogue and sound effects to use on the album. This would become a characteristic that White Zombie would be known for on their later albums, especially on their Geffen releases. "Soul-Crusher" was first issued on vinyl by the band's independent label Silent Explosion before the band was subsequently signed to Caroline Records and the album was repressed. Each label produced two-thousand copies on vinyl, making the record a much sought-after rarity among collectors. The album remained out-of-print for nearly two decades until making its Compact Disc debut on the 2008 anthology "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie". In 2016, it was re-issued on CD and vinyl in the anthology "It Came From N.Y.C.", with remastered audio courtesy of guitarist Jay Yuenger. The concept for the front and back cover was conceived by Rob in sketch form and executed by Michael Lavine, who had previously worked with White Zombie on "Psycho-Head Blowout". It is a single photograph of the band, which continues from the front to the back of the record, that was montaged in a darkroom. Sean mistakenly used the wrong color for the logo and titles, turning what was originally intended to be blood-red into hot pink lettering. The reception of the album, at the time, was somewhat positive, with significant amount of praise was directed at Rob's esoteric lyrical contributions. In her book "I'm in the Band", Sean recalled that "critics seemed to enjoy Rob's psychotic lyrics, so much so that their entire review would try to emulate his style, which was entertaining". Billy Lucas and David Stubbs of "Melody Maker Magazine" praised the artwork, lyrics, "slammer guitars", and "scrawling vocals" on the album. "Sounds" gave the album three out of five stars; the reviewer citing that the album contained "no melody, little arrangement, just a cacophony of unlovely, forbidding noise that bloodies the nose of rock 'n' roll". Iggy Pop was an admirer of the album and listed it as one of his favorite records of 1988 in the "Readers and Critics Poll" for "Rolling Stone".