mike kraski, then the senior vice president of sales and marketing at sony music nashville, thought that "carrying on" showed an artistic growth over "tattoos & scars", and the duo itself thought that "carrying on" was more "edgy" in comparison. it was less favorably received than its predecessor; william ruhlmann thought that many of the songs "sound like they're trying to hard to be macho", and "country standard time"'s mike clark thought that the duo was "playing it safe", although he described the singles favorably. the album was certified gold for shipments of 500,000 copies.