It speaks directly of "discrimination and hate", and recommends ways of oppressing a minority: "Use bible and booze and bayonet"; "Use articles of law against ancient rights".

[3] Boine described in an interview with Norwegian American how the songs came about:[4] I became very angry to our repression, to the fact that we were told that there was something wrong with our language and our culture.

[15] Silje F. Erdal, for Norway's FolkMusikk organisation, described the album as Boine's breakthrough, especially when Peter Gabriel re-released it on his Real World label.

[18] The title song formed the first (instrumental) track of the Norwegian jazz musician Jan Garbarek's 1990 album I Took Up the Runes.

[5] In his view, the musical forms are simple, with "the musicians playing 'ethnic' instruments such as the West African drums, mbira, Greek bouzouki, etc".

[5] In 2011, the scholar of folk music Tellef Kvifte, who performed on the album, states that "to sound 'ethnic'" (his inverted commas) has become purely a matter of style, not necessarily relating to a specific ethnic group.

[20] Thus, he writes, Oppskrift for herrefolk (track 7) is accompanied by charango (an Andean stringed instrument) played by Carlos Quipse, "a Peruvian Indian", while the electric guitarist, Roger Ludvigsen, is like Boine ethnically a Sámi.

[20] Kvifte mentions, too, the seljefløyte ("willow flute"), an overtone instrument which hints at "a general Scandinavian folk ethnic identity".