[1] According to Ivar Bjørnson, "The album came on the heels of our 2009 tour with Opeth, which introduced us to a lot of new people who discovered we might actually be something other than what they thought and it was good for us.

"“Ethica Odini” simply explodes out of the gates with a ferocity we haven't heard since 2003's landmark Below the Lights, a thunderous, mid-paced gallop with guitars sounding nearly as icy as they did on 1994's Frost.

[5] AllMusic write that "Quieter passages, melodic arpeggios, contrast-giving keyboard parts, and Herbrand Larsen's distinctive clean singing still populate most every track, but largely in secondary roles (the predominantly gentle "Night Sight" being the only notable exception); which doesn't mean they are any less impactful", and that "the "progressive" label still looms tall among the top three or four genre descriptions applicable to Enslaved's ever-complex and unpredictable sound (psychedelics not so much this time around), and the fact that black metal does too is all that longtime acolytes could ask from a band honorable enough to hang onto their musical roots while constantly intriguing and captivating them with new experiments.

AllMusic's Eduardo Rivadavia wrote that "the "progressive" label still looms tall among the top three or four genre descriptions applicable to Enslaved's ever-complex and unpredictable sound (psychedelics not so much this time around), and the fact that black metal does too is all that longtime acolytes could ask from a band honorable enough to hang onto their musical roots while constantly intriguing and captivating them with new experiments."

PopMatters' also praised the band's songwriting, writing that "What's been at the core of Enslaved's music from 2004's Isa and onward is not heaviness and aggression, but rather dynamics.

They've been getting better and better at offsetting the chilly atmospherics and pulverizing brutality with contemplative moments that stress melody, but Axioma Ethica Odini is so adept at shifting gears that the band makes it feel effortless."

Concluding his review, "Axioma Ethica Odini is less a reinvention by Enslaved than an encapsulation of all of the strongest aspects of their music over the past decade.