"[5] The band altered their approach to songwriting, recording and production in comparison to previous albums, with Merat explaining that "In terms of melody, it feels like now is the time for us to pull back from dissonance twenty-four-seven and really start making more melodic music".

He described the album's style as "Sheets and shards of incredibly abrasive, harsh, dissonant guitar work pile up over a pummeling onslaught of drums and grinding bass, and vocalist/lyricist Paul Kelland roars like a wounded animal.

Sputnik Music described the album as a "masterpiece of musicianship, composition and imagery", writing that "In keeping with Ulcerate opuses of the past, Shrines of Paralysis hides all of its nuances from plain view, uncovering them only for the most devout.

"[12] Metal Hammer's Dom Lawson described the album as "intensely internal music, wrung from the darkest depths of the New Zealanders’ collective consciousness and spewed out with flailing abandon like Cthulhu bursting through the earth’s surface.

It speaks of unimaginable horrors, as barbarous and excruciating maelstroms of dissonance and rhythmic ebb and flow like the opening Abrogation and the unnervingly bleak There Are No Saviours unfold."