Violence received positive reviews from music critics. The album has received a score of 72 on review aggregator website
Metacritic, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 13 reviews. Andrew Trendell of
NME awarded the album with 4 out of 5 stars, using the track "
No Sound but the Wind" as a symbol for the band's improvement over the last records with
Violence: "It's an aching but hopeful lament to marching on against the odds. It seems only too fitting then that in this incarnation, it's part of the record that could well bring Editors back home." Matt Collar, writing for
AllMusic, gave the album 4 out of 5 stars: "With
Violence, the Editors have crafted a big pop album on their own terms, rife with grand, operatic gestures and heat-seeking hooks that cut deep, just as they put salve on your wounds." In a review for the album published in paper by
Q, the album was awarded 4 out of 5 stars with the statement: "The results okays to their strengths. ... There's a lightness of touch here lost since
An End Has a Start a decade ago." Writing for
Drowned in Sound, Cady Siregar gave the album a rating of 7 out of 10, the same score
Violence's predecessor
In Dream received. Overall praising the new direction of the album, the review reads: "It's clear with
Violence that Editors are working to build upon their new sound instead of re-inventing and re-producing, and though their efforts of combining dark indie
disco-pop with more morose lyrics and guitar undertones, it is a refreshing new direction." Andy Baber of
musicOMH, awarding the album with a 7 out of 10 rating, follows similar lines of thought, describing the album as both exertive yet ultimately worthwhile: "It may not be an easy listening experience at times, but
Violence is ultimately an album that deserves your patience." Similarly, Richard Driver of
PopMatters, while awarding the album with 7 out of 10 stars and drawing a positive conclusion, writes: "
Violence sounds too much like Editors sought to remake themselves as part of a worthy collaboration with artist Blanck Mass under leadership by producer Leo Abrahams, with success intermittent and weak spots highlighted inadvertently. The album altogether is enjoyable but risks too much as a method of visualizing its distinction from the band's preceding albums." ==Promotion and release==