"[7] Critic Rowan Savage compared the album to Mark Z. Danielewski's novel House of Leaves (2000) due to its "endless and fearfully cavernous space (the ballroom) existing concealed by the deceptive limitations of familiar domesticity" represented with a deep resonant sound.

[1] According to Savage, the repetitive aspects of the album question the listener if "[their] sense of familiarity spring[s] from the loop[s] [themselves] or from the very patina that inheres in the scratchy turntable record as such".

[2] An Empty Bliss has retrofuturistic themes of disputes between the distant past and the envisioned future similar to Into Outer Space with Lucia Pamela (1969).

"[2] Describing "War Songs" as a "peculiar evocation of the 30s and 50s as vocodered through eerie 80s electro," Savage explained: It's as if Kirby, speaking to a postmodern generation steeped in Stone-cold revivalism [...] is asking: "You call that retro?

[2] It is unknown if Kirby added these echo filters or if they are a part of the original recordings, which Savage interpreted as giving the album an "affective" vibe.

[9] As Powell wrote, An Empty Bliss has a "mindless" method of editing audio sources to represent "the fragmented and inconclusive ways our memories work.

"[6] The album also has a "jump cut" method of transitioning between each track and noticeable skipping through melodic samples;[8] some songs end abruptly in what feels like their mid-way point.

"[2] This was similarly remarked in Powell's review of the album, in which he wrote that "there's something at least metaphorically beautiful-- even slightly funny-- about living inside a locked groove, dancing with nobody.

"[6] PopMatters critic D. M. Edwards opined that while some tracks, such as "All You're Going to Want to Do Is Get Back There" and "Mental Caverns Without Sunshine," are "sublime rather than weird or unnerving," others are "uncomfortable as being ten years old and required to kiss your grandmother on her overly lipsticked mouth.

[22] Michael Lovino, writing for No Ripcord, analyzed, "there’s a mysterious sense that what we're listening to is pure fantasy, designed to perplex our constant perception of our reality, of the moment, now, as we experience it, right now.

"[14] He highlighted the album's ability to achieve a "perplexing and strenuous" task of inducing many emotions into the listener, writing that "Kirby does it with a special kind of grace.

"[14] Ryce called An Empty Bliss "evocative, heart-tugging stuff," stating that "when knowledge of Kirby's intent lurks underneath the damaged acetate grooves, it becomes something else entirely: A poignant interrogation of memory loss and aging.

"[15] Andrew Hall of Coke Machine Glow described An Empty Bliss as "a remarkably cohesive listen and one that achieves its goals, but whether or not it, in and of itself, is an entirely creative work is another question entirely.

"[23] He compared the record to The Shining, the film that helped inspire the album, in that they "perfectly capture the sense of a faltering mind, with past and present blurring together into a beautifully eerie whole.

"[23] Retrospectively reviewing the album for AllMusic, Paul Simpson awarded it five stars and summarised that it "quickly became a cult classic, and has since been regarded as one of the defining works of hauntology, a concept evoking cultural memory, which has also been present in discussions of other British artists such as Burial and the Ghost Box label."

[31] Embling wrote that with the album, "Leyland Kirby presented pre-war 78s in their current, decaying condition, as a testament to the things that cannot be restored, those people, moments, and memories lost to time, out of reach and forever unrecoverable.