Clipping described There Existed an Addiction to Blood in a press release as a "transmutation of horrorcore", continuing that it "absorbs the hyper-violent horror tropes of the Murder Dog era, but re-imagines them in a new light: still darkly-tinted and somber, but in a weirder and more vivid hue".

[7][8] Throughout the album, Daveed Diggs describes "gruesome movie scenarios", but, according to the Financial Times journalist Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, the lyrics do not contain the "sick [humor]" and misogyny associated with the genre.

[9] The album title comes from the Sam Waymon song "The Blood of Thing (Part 2) Shadow of the Cross", written for the vampire film Ganja & Hess.

[12] Paul Simpson of AllMusic described the album's "most exciting tracks" as "downright hallucinatory" and considered that Diggs' delivery is "precise and unflinching, detailing gruesome scenes with pinpoint accuracy".

[1] The Line of Best Fit's Jack Bray hailed as "disheartening and sonically intriguing", adding that it "is yet another successful experiment for the group and one of the eeriest examples of modern hip-hop to date".