[3] In contrast to the band's previous album, In the Nightside Eclipse, Anthems showcases a faster, more guitar-driven performance with less usage of keyboards and more clean singing and blast-beat style drumwork.

The album's musical approach is explained on the back cover, with a quote that reads "Emperor performs Sophisticated Black Metal Art exclusively".

According to Steve Huey from AllMusic, the album is a "magnificently-conceived and executed opus that fulfills all of Emperor's promise and ambition.

"It definitely builds on the groundwork laid by extreme metal pioneers Celtic Frost and Bathory: the former with its restless experimentalism, and the latter with its determination to create something quintessentially Scandinavian.

"[1] Finally, he concluded: "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk cemented Emperor's reputation as black metal's greatest band, and Ihsahn as its foremost musical visionary; it also firmly established black metal as an art form that wasn't going away any time soon, and opened up a wide range of creative possibilities to the more progressive, eccentric wing of the genre.