The album charted in several international charts, debuting on the top ten of the Billboard Canadian Albums and US Billboard 200, becoming his highest debut on the letter. The album also topped the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Four singles supported the album: "Have a Baby (With Me)", "Call on Me", "Moon" featuring Bon Iver, and "Who Knows".
At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 61 based on four reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[6] Andy Kellman of AllMusic described the songs as "spare and finely textured with the exception of 'Call on Me,' a sauntering, slightly ragged rocker offering assurance", going on to comment that "The surplus of ambling ballads, especially during a stretch in the latter half that features the soft voices of Justin Vernon, Yebba, and Hynes, blurs the line between pleasantly languid and laborious. Near the end, there's a slight uptick in intensity." He believed the final track, "Sins of the Father", was "a startling way to finish an album that contains signs of father-son reconciliation. Instead of tying it with a bow, Caesar flings it to the ground."[7] Fred Garratt-Stanley of NME wrote "Sometimes the introspection is a touch overcooked, the lyricism stumbling into platitude. But the honesty and self-interrogation should be applauded, and the powerful, richly textured soundscapes behind it all show why Daniel Caesar is revered as one of the most important artists in modern R&B and soul."[9]
Some music critics were rather critical of the music; Stephen Kearse of Pitchfork opined that the music following the opening track "Rain Down" was "directionless", stating "Caesar sings often of wanting to become a father, but the theme is muddled by his clumsy writing." He commented that Caesar had "more platitudes than testimonies" and called the songwriting "sophomoric", adding that he "shows no interest in the melodrama that can elevate R&B songs about love and its complications into the sublime, the singular. Whatever story he aims to tell about faith, it's not in the music."[10] Irene Monokandilos of Clash wrote "Yet for all its thematic daring, 'Son of Spergy' ultimately falters into inertia. This is diet Daniel Caesar at best. The production is a circling of the rhythmic drain – settling too often into a homogenous mid-tempo blur that once felt meditative but now risks monotony. Lyrics feel more like the stream-of-consciousness journaling my therapists orders me to do each morning, rather than the timeless, poetic ingenuity we've come to expect. Caesar wants 'Son of Spergy' to sound like the Montana sky where much of it was conceived: endless, open, warm, quietly divine. But wide-open landscapes can feel empty and tedious when you don't fill them with movement. Still, there's power in imperfection. 'Son of Spergy' won't restore Caesar's sonic crown, nor does it try to. He's an artist mid-molt, shedding the reflexive need to please, learning how to sit with the awkward silences. The result isn't always beautiful, but it's rarely dishonest."[8]
Commercial performance
In Canada Son of Spergy debouted at number eight on the Billboard Canadian Albums, becoming Caesar third consecutive top ten album on the chart.[11] In the United States the album become the singer first top ten debout on the Billboard 200, placing at four with 43,000 equivalent album units.[12] The album also debouted at number one on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, becoming his first number one recording project to achieve it.[13]
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