In a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the song "Fighter Pilot", the credits on the sleeve give each of the musicians a mock military aviation role, with Cale described as "flight surgeon".

The album's title is an abbreviation of the phrase Honi soit qui mal y pense (French: "shame upon him who thinks evil of it"[5]), the motto of the British chivalric Order of the Garter.

Hull of Creem wrote that "Once again on Honi Soit – from the opening trumpet blast of "Dead or Alive" to the final pounding of the drums on "Magic & Lies" – Cale evokes the epochal – this time as a series of battles, as a pure declaration of war.

"[9] Stephen Holden of The New York Times called the album "excellent", and described Cale as "one of the godfathers of new-wave music, [who] has accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of reconciling the ferocity of postpunk rock with the stateliness of European classicism.

"[10] In a retrospective review for AllMusic, critic Mark Deming said that "Honi Soit rivals Fear as the most lividly uncomfortable album in Cale's catalog, and that's saying something.