Debra Rae Cohen, writing in The New York Times, said that the album's songs ``dwell on the underlying truths and unadmitted paradoxes of love, of independence, and the area where they overlap and struggle'', that Armatrading ``shows a new control in _her_ arrangements'', the album being ``one more step in Miss Armatrading's continual journey'' and that The Key should help her to ``become a household name''. <sep>, Pronoun: her <sep>, A: Debra Rae Cohen <sep>, B: Armatrading