[1] According to Rave, "Stridulum II is pretty profound... She's sandblasted her songs clean of the lo-fi trappings of The Spoils, letting her incredible voice shine through the arrangements...

Chad Parkhill concludes, "Zola Jesus is an exciting project, and if Danilova keeps improving at this clip, her sophomore album proper will be simply incredible.

[13] "She has a way with a lyric, the way that the greatest pop stars do, of saying something simple that could mean so much to so many – conveying the universal in one chorus or a snatch of verse," The Quietus reviewer wrote, again praising Danilova's voice.

It's the voice of a diva in the truest sense of the word, a mix of Maria Callas and Florence Welch, designed to be sung wherever Danilova wants to go: opera houses or Glastonbury.

"[14] The Uncut reviewer called "her sound... instantly transfixing",[11] while The Observer, making parallels to "Siouxsie Sioux fronting the xx" and the "goth Florence Welch", argued that this album found Jesus "moving away from her avant-garde early recordings and embracing direct songwriting and pithier instrumentation, to arresting results".

[15] As Kyle Ellison of Drowned in Sound put it, "Most noticeably on Stridulum II, the vocals are placed slap bang in the middle of the mix...

Praising "the potency and inherent potential in Danilova’s voice", and mentioning These New Puritans, Siouxsie Sioux, Cocteau Twins and Florence Welch as points of reference, the critic argued that still "without the wizard’s curtain of feverish fuzz to hide behind, her compositions can appear vulnerable, hollow and frail".