The album is Mount Kimbie's first as a quartet, after the primary duo, Dominic Maker and Kai Campos, invited Andrea Balency-Béarn and Marc Pell to join the band.

[1] It also features contributions from King Krule, who had previously appeared on two songs from 2013's Cold Spring Fault Less Youth,[2] one from 2017's Love What Survives,[3] and the 2018 standalone single "Turtle Neck Man".

[12] The track was described as a "pretty, playful piece of music built from warm Tangerine Dream synth-tones and shambling indie jangle" where King Krule's "echo-drenched voice sounds perfectly at home.

[14] Unlike previous Mount Kimbie projects where they would come in after the creation process was finished and record as session musicians, the two were much more hands-on for The Sunset Violent, including Balency-Béarn's contributions to vocals and Pell's ideas for percussion.

[17] Specific styles covered include Radiohead-style rocktronica on "Dumb Guitar", Joy Division timbre with dream pop backing vocals on "Shipwreck", and a New Romantic keyboard solo on "Fishbrain".

[21] Loud and Quiet's Sam Walton called the album "an ambitious and carefully constructed record that feels far grander than its modest 37 minutes would suggest, full of compelling, forward-facing rock music made up of compositionally complex but still accessible songs.

's Spencer Nafekh-Blanchette called the album "oftentimes soft and subdued, sometimes fast and exciting, but constantly strange and disorienting in the best of ways", and said that the band "throw things at the wall and see what sticks — those flung with high velocity make the most impact.

"[18] Flood Magazine's Jeff Terich wrote that while "not every idea here is necessarily a revelation ... the overall impression is one of a band enjoying the possibilities of a new approach and a new configuration, breaking conventions and shattering expectations—and seemingly having a lot of fun doing it.