Li spent six months writing the album in the Echo Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles, while visiting the desert, rewatching Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1973 film The Holy Mountain and listening to Alan Lomax field recordings, eventually coming up with songs she calls "hypnotic, psychotic and more primal".

[15] Li also toured Europe and North America in promotion of the album, starting at El Rey Theatre at Los Angeles on 9 March 2011.

[25] Corey Beasley of PopMatters described it as "a dark record, borne of lost love and youthful frustrations, more suited in tone to the frozen lake country than the haze of sunny SoCal.

"[35] K. Ross Hoffman of AllMusic wrote that Li "hasn't entirely let go of her girlish sweetness, and she certainly hasn't lost her way with a melodic hook, but she's largely outgrown the more cloyingly precious, occasionally clumsy tendencies that sometimes plagued her debut, and her singing voice, while still appealingly personable and distinctive, has gotten considerably more forceful", while praising the album as "an inspired, rugged, smart, emotive, coolly modern piece of indie pop, and an improvement on Lykke Li's debut in just about every respect.

"[1] Rolling Stone critic Jody Rosen dubbed the album "a weird-pop gem" containing "torchy love songs that nod to Sixties hits but are stretched into all kinds of shapes.

The arrangements are still stark and driven by syncopated handclaps and off-kilter drums, but now, voice creaking with heartache, she sounds like she's casting dark spells rather than serenading daydreams.

"[36] Kevin Liedel of Slant Magazine expressed that the album "is not so much a stylistic departure as it is a stark transformation of mood: Though still an expert dabbler in gravelly electro-pop, Li sounds positively dangerous now, her voice tormented, biting, and weapon-like, and her accompaniments following suit.

"[34] In a review for Pitchfork, Stephen M. Deusner viewed Wounded Rhymes as "an album of stark, scintillating contrasts: between fantasy and reality, between the powerful and the vulnerable, between the brash and the quiet, between the rhythmic and the melodic.

"[32] Amanda Petrusich of Entertainment Weekly commented, "While her 2008 breakout, Youth Novels, was quirky and coy, Wounded Rhymes is hungry, dark, dirty.

"[27] Jazz Monroe of NME concluded that "for all its wailing codas, swollen strings and silky production, Wounded Rhymes, while a bold statement, doesn't quite strike the same lugubrious groove.