maya kalev of "fact" noted that "[f]ans of "silent shout" and "deep cuts" [...] will find "shaking the habitual"s hybrid of post-punk, techno, industrial, coldwave, drone and electro-pop discomforting", adding, "at "shaking the habitual"s core are the processes of deconstruction and reconstruction, so rare in the tradition of mostly reiterative pop music that the album feels transgressive". "the independent" critic simon price described the album as "long [...], strange, disturbing, uncomfortable, challenging. but it never fails to fascinate." louis pattison of "nme" expressed, "sporadically brilliant, perhaps it is the knife's "inland empire"—a fearless piece of work with its own logic, one that shears away all safety nets. invention, stark and undiluted." anna wilson of "clash" concluded, "increasingly aggressive and overtly detuned, [karin and olof's] individual styles have collided to create something elemental, immense and unsettling. self-possessed and uncompromising, this is a record with regal bearing." "rolling stone"s jon dolan wrote that, compared to "silent shout", "shaking the habitual" "explores even wilder styles of mordantly nutso android bleat". eric henderson of "slant magazine" viewed that most of the album "consign[s] anything remotely hooky into the realm of affectation", and the lyrics are "delivered by some of karin's most obtuse vocal performances to date, her sinewy androgynous pipes muscling through slide-whistle octaves fearlessly and tunelessly." hayden woolley of "drowned in sound" found the album "unnavigable and unknowable, almost impossible to write about and even harder to listen to." "the guardian"s alexis petridis felt that ""shaking the habitual"s problem is that the knife seem to have dismissed the idea of making your point concisely as merely another affectation of a decadent and corrupt society", describing the album as "alternately utterly gripping and unbearably boring; incredibly bold and strangely flaccid, viscerally thrilling and hopelessly over-thought."