[2] Daniel had written the track "What Gets You Alone" and sent it to Boeckner in February 2011, who recorded vocals over top of it, and decided to go to California the following year, along with Sam Brown to form the band.

A Thing Called Divine Fits was generally well received by critics, with aggregate rating site Metacritic assigning it a score of 77 out of 100 based on 30 reviews.

[4] Josh Modell of Spin described it as "something fresh from the "supergroup that they hadn't done with their respective groups before" and wrote that the band "is flirting with the coolest music 1982 had to offer," though that they have more potential than what that the album showed.

[14] Mary Chang of DIY called the album's cohesiveness "astonishing" considering that the band had only formed some months prior to its release.

Rolling Stone's Jon Dolan described their partnership as a "genuine synthesis",[13] while Harley Brown of Consequence of Sound wrote that "it might be the most fortuitous musical pairing in recent history.