The album was supported by the lead single of the same name, as well as "Belong to the World", "Love in the Sky", "Live For", "Pretty", and "Wanderlust".

[5][6] In July 2013, during an interview with Complex, the Weeknd described the album, saying: Kiss Land symbolizes the tour life, but it's a world that I created in my head.

A lot of it is inspired by filmmakers like John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and Ridley Scott, because they know how to capture fear.

[15] On August 20, 2013, the track "Live For", which features Drake, impacted mainstream urban radio[16] and was released along with the pre-order of the album on the iTunes Store.

[27] Chris Payne of Billboard stated, "Blissfully hi-fi headphone candy that's not far from the Weeknd's mixtape trilogy, but with an added flair for the dramatic".

[39] In a review from Clash, Grant Brydon noted that "Rather than upgrading to studio album status by hiring an all-star cast of contributors, Kiss Land sticks to the familiar formula of 10 tracks, as per the mixtapes, with a single guest appearance from previous collaborator Drake.

Instead, he's managed to transcend his previous efforts via the scaling up the sonics and simply maintaining the quality of this excellent record".

[40] In a more critical review, Anupa Mistry of Spin saying that "Kiss Land plays like a more considered, better-mastered continuation of Echoes of Silence, not anything dramatically different.

[29] Jesse Cataldo of Slant Magazine said, "The music is never up to the conceptual task, and the album too often settles for numbing backdrops, with songs like "Belong to the World" and "Wanderlust" resembling wan impersonations of Bad-era Michael Jackson".

[41] Ian Cohen of Pitchfork said, "Kiss Land is technically the Weeknd's fourth album in two and a half years, and without the ear-turning innovation of the earlier work, all you can muster in reaction to its worldview, the same one that's been delivered repeatedly without variation, is, "Maybe it's you, man".

[36] August Brown of the Los Angeles Times said, "For an act founded in anonymity and reserve, it turns out the Weeknd's most convincing work of art is Tesfaye's own rollout as a star and storyteller.

[42] Corey Beasley of PopMatters said, "It's easy to catch the way Kiss Land attempts to turn Trilogy's afterparty ennui into a big screen, on-the-road, b-movie melodrama (something like Only God Forgives, with even less of a plot).

[43] Mike Madden of Consequence said, "Apart from its mild lyrical slips, Kiss Land doesn't really have any cosmetic issues, just relative shortcomings when you consider the singular thrills his 2011 output offered.

While many criticized his second two mixtapes, Thursday and Echoes of Silence, for being subpar reiterations of what he did so perfectly on House of Balloons, Kiss Land is anything but a retread".

[46] Nick Catucci of Entertainment Weekly named it the fifth best album of 2013 saying, "a nearly hour-long head trip in which sexual obsession, betrayal, addiction, and big-ticket trust issues tangle like limbs under silk sheets.

It's a weirdly exhilarating experience, with the bonus effect of torpedoing the make-believe encouraged by cheery online dating profiles".

[47] In a 2023 feature revisiting the album, Adrianne Reece of Elite Daily described Kiss Land as "more timeless than his mainstream contemporaries Starboy and Beauty Behind the Madness."

That looming drawl glides in the album's sound design, which toy with menacing drum patterns and minor synths to create this space of unease.