The Allmusic review by Brian Olewnick calls the album "a hodgepodge of an album with varying combinations of musicians producing work that ranges from the weirdly bad to the astonishingly beautiful".[2]The Penguin Guide to Jazz awarded the album 3½ stars, stating "Things to Come is a ringing assertion of Abram's lifelong belief that musical advancement can only be achieved by observing the lessons of tradition".[3]The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide said "Things to Come from Those Now Gone captures Abrams and the AACM in the middle of this decade running the gamut between chamber ballads, hard bop, electronics, mock opera and high energy".[4]