Electro-Shock Blues was written largely in response to frontman Mark Oliver "E" Everett's sister Elizabeth's suicide and his mother's terminal lung cancer.

You Rock My World", is a hopeful bookend to "Elizabeth", containing subtly humorous lyrics that describe, among other things, an elderly woman at a gas station honking her car at Everett, incorrectly assuming he is the attendant, and his decision that "maybe it's time to live".

"[10] Marc Weingarten of Entertainment Weekly wrote that while the album "lays bare the horrors of terminal illness in songs that shift from clinical to disconsolate", its "real feat is in making death life-affirming".

[8] Colin Cooper of Stylus Magazine, in a retrospective write-up of Electro-Shock Blues, described it as "an album that reeks of classic on all levels: scene is set, tone established, problem arisen, grappled, fought (nearly lost) and eventually—joyously—overcome.

"[17] Sputnikmusic reviewer Robin called it "deeper than some ironic indie pop record: it's E's honest smack of tough love, and he is his own recipient.