[4] The album's title, Krai — Край in the Cyrillic alphabet used to write Russian — can be translated variously as edge,[4] frontier,[5] limit,[6] region,[7] or wilderness.

[4] Third track "Perm Krai" was characterized as "smooth fusion with art-prog and metal edges, like a chance meeting of Basia, Henry Cow, and Marnie Stern.

[citation needed] Peter Margasak of Chicago Reader described how Krai "alternates between dense and frenetic, airy and meditative, but the arrangements are never less than rigorous.

"[9] The New York Times's Stacey Anderson called Krai "a folkloric study of her homeland and a contemporary exercise in electronic production," and noted that the album was "drastically removed from the pop structures of the Dirty Projectors and her other band, the dance duo Nothankyou.

"[6] Jody Beth of The Quietus praised "Bell's aptitude for melody" and called the album "great and intriguing and perplexing", comparing Bell's work to that of Kate Bush and Trio Bulgarka, while acknowledging that "[t]he 'everything all the time' aspect to Krai — the province of unsung artists who want to put all their heady ideas out there at once — makes it as exhausting as it is impressive.

"[5] Less conflicted in her praise, reviewer Helen Brown of The Telegraph described the album as "a journey across the vastness of Russia" and dismissed its flaws as "blips in an otherwise richly rewarding odyssey.