[9] Arriving at the peak of the "house explosion",[10] the album was in contrast to the era's "hardcore" and "aggressive" electronica[12] and "proved that techno could be more than druggy dance music".

[16] James's enigmatic persona, marked by reticent interviews and outlandish, unverifiable claims, has deepened the mystique around his life and music and blurred facts about his recording process with fiction.

[17][18] James has stated that most of Selected Ambient Works Volume II had been recorded in 1993, a year before the album's official release,[19] in his London and Cornwall home studios.

[21][22][23] His North London home studio, built in 1993, contained a variety of old EMS, Moog, ARP,[24] and Oberheim Matrix synthesizers.

[34] James compared the album with "standing in a power station on acid", feeling the hum and dreamlike presence of the surrounding electricity.

Simon Reynolds commented that, on Volume II, James changed styles "from the idyllic, Satie-esque naïveté of early tracks like 'Analogue Bubblebath' to clammy, foreboding sound-paintings.

"[35] Reynolds stated that, along with other artists such as Seefeel, David Toop and Max Eastley, James had moved from "rave" into the vicinity of isolationism", a term coined by Kevin Martin to label music that "breaks with all of ambient's feel-good premises.

[30] Prendergast described the overall composition of Volume II as "waking dreams, replete with muffled cooing voices and phantom rhythms".

[30] In a later discussion about the album, Dan Carr of Reverb called the composition of track 3 ("Rhubarb") a "rhythmically shapeless piece" which is based around a "beautiful-sounding chord progression that is repeated throughout the entire song".

[27] Carlos Hawthorn writing for Resident Advisor noted the chilling atmosphere of track 22 ("Spots"), which featured a sample taken from a stolen police interview tape with a woman who had murdered her husband.

[40] A retrospective review for Pitchfork described track 16 ("Grey Stripe") as "pure filtered white noise", like "the dying breath of a distant star".

[46] The front cover of Volume II was the result of James scratching the Aphex Twin logo onto the back of a leather travel case using a razor and a compass, which Sam photographed.

[54] Before its release on Volume II, the track "Blue Calx" had been featured on a 1992 compilation titled The Philosophy of Sound and Machine, published by Rephlex Records.

[39] In June 2024, Warp announced an expanded edition of the album on digital, triple CD, 4xLP and double cassette formats,[61] remastered by Matt Colton.

[62] A 4xLP deluxe boxset came in a hinged oak case topped with an etched copper plate and accompanied by a booklet of design sketches.

Robert Christgau, writing in The Village Voice, negatively expressed how James's music was incomparable to that of Brian Eno, Jon Hassell or Harold Budd and commented on the lack of richness in Volume II's composition.

[83] Entertainment Weekly critic Charles Aaron stated that Volume II resembled an avant-garde soundtrack to a "postapocalyptic" piece of theater, similar to the compositions of Philip Glass.

[93][94] Hyperreal.org, a rave culture site which hosted an influential IDM mailing list,[29][95] conducted polls that ranked the all-time ambient records; Volume II was placed as the first in 1996, and the second in 2001.

[93] David Fricke, Rob Sheffield, and Ann Powers of Rolling Stone stated that James had created a perfect soundtrack for recuperating after a loud night at a club, and that it was a dance album that focused on rhythm within one's head.

[94] Within the Spin Alternative Record Guide, Simon Reynolds gave Volume II a positive review, acknowledging that while the album wasn't as engaging as Selected Ambient Works 85–92, it was still as impressive.

[93][98] Alex Linhardt of Pitchfork discussed how Volume II was responsible for one of the great trajectories of pop music in the 1990s, influencing the sound of artists such as Radiohead, notably for their album Kid A, and Timbaland.

[100] Carlos Hawthorn of Resident Advisor gave the album a 5/5 for its 25th anniversary, writing that Volume II created atmospheres made up of vivid textures and sounds.

[89] In a biography discussing James in the 2001 edition of the All Music Guide to Electronica, John Bush referred to the album multiple times as a "joke on the electronic community" due to its minimal composition and its difference in sound from Selected Ambient Works 85–92 and On.

[101][102] In the same guide, reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote about the album's mysterious and difficult nature for most listeners, while also stating that many would find it fascinating.

[101][103] Marc Weidenbaum discussed how there were continued rumours of Volume II being a joke or prank, and that it was used supposedly to exploit the popularity of Selected Ambient Works 85–92.

[104] Mark Richardson of Pitchfork noted that Selected Ambient Works Volume II was "a very early example of a record being anticipated, experienced, and, ultimately, analyzed in minute detail through online communication.

[107] Geeta Dayal noted how a YouTube upload of the track had gained a large number of views, as well as thousands of comments that discussed "everything from the vastness of the universe to monoliths and existential despair".

Reid W. Dunn, known by the alias Wisp, released a selection of remixes of tracks from Volume II in 2004 for the album's tenth anniversary.