The album was recorded inside a disused, "demountable" classroom from the 1960s that Liddiard had renovated for "ten grand" (it would subsequently be converted into a kitchen).

We renovated that up [...] we bought a bunch of cheap and nasty velvet curtains off eBay and threw a Persian rug or two in there and it ended up sounding really good.

"[10] Alex Griffin of Tiny Mix Tapes writes that the record comes "with more dread-filled hopelessness than an entire tent of doomed Arctic explorers, while somehow remaining more elliptical and brutal than anything else they’ve released, moving with a mixture of reckless uncertainty and whiplash dynamism that makes “Jezebel" feel like breakfast cereal".

[11] Chris Gridler of Beat writes that while the band's previous releases were "entrenched in the surrounding landscape and its people", on this album they "branch out and move to more universal themes" despite retaining their "strong sense of place".

[13] The opening title track "alludes to rising seas and overpopulation"[13] and features "a melancholic verse" that "crescendoes into an explosive refrain later totally downcast in the bridge"[9] and has been called their "heaviest song – lyrically and musically" since the aforementioned "Jezebel".

"[14] "They'll Kill You", the following track, "details the failures that twenty-something Australian emigrants encounter when they try and escape reality by positing a greater one beyond that country’s borders.

The cracking of illusion is painted in the way the chord progression yields and opens to a seasick lurch down the scale in the bridge, sliding like the point in an argument where things start getting thrown, and sinking towards the inevitable conclusion: "this birdhouse migrates too"" and has been described as "devastating".

"[14] "A Moat You Can Stand In" harks back to the band's earlier, noisy style[9] and "lays the boot into Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt and other demagogues doing their best to destabilise the current (Australian) government",[10] also described as being "hilarious" in its "skewering" of these topics.

[13] "Nine Eyes", the following track, features semi-autobiographical lyrics that finds "Liddiard using Google Street view to observe the socioeconomic damage wrought on his home town of Port Hedland by "cashed-up bogan" mine workers"[10] and has been described as "equal parts disturbing and funny".

Its curious use of piano, sudden orchestral boost and harmonizing female choir result in full-on cinematic grandeur that's fairly distant from the group's usual aesthetics, if never less commanding.

"[17] The final track "Why Write A Letter That You'll Never Send" has been described as "fiery", building from "a gentle acoustic intro [...] to its halfway point" before "erupting into a rant about everything from the holocaust to the Vatican, even wily a dig at Band Aid".

"[29] "While polemicists of the left and right continue to fire the occasional shot in the simmering Australian history wars," notes Patrick Emery writing for Sydney Morning Herald, "The Drones' sociological narrative" on I See Seaweed "remains devoid of ideological pretence, and rich in its portrayal of the inherent flaws of humanity.

[19] In a year-end round-up, Darren Levin of The Guardian wrote that the band, alongside "Aussie rock stalwarts" such as Adalita and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, "put out great records in 2013.

Frontman Gareth Liddiard’s newfound fondness for Russian classical composers took the drama on I See Seaweed to another level, as did the addition of pianist Steve Hesketh to their lineup.

In diffusing its culturally specific moment in order to highlight broader ideas, I See Seaweed posits that Australian music can be political without being parochial.The song "How to See Through Fog" was used in the telefilm The Outlaw Michael Howe.

[50] Ghosting Season called it one of their five favorite albums of the year, with Gavin Miller lamenting the fact that it went "under a lot of peoples' radar[s] [...] as they outstrip about 99% of rock bands at the moment.

[53] Dale Tanner of Ocean Grove listed the title track of the album as a favourite, recalling that it had given him "chills" the first time he'd heard it on the radio.