In the series, Hopewell was interviewed by drummer Russell Bates and revealed that Hold Fast was a happier album lyrically than Chasing After Ghosts because he suffers "quite badly from seasonal affective disorder" and "in winter when it's cold, I just generally find it impossible to write happy songs because I'm always quite miserable, but then this last album, which was written while we were abroad, and it was sunny, and it was an incredible time, so I think it was impossible for me to be unhappy when it is like that.

The campaign's Web site stated that "a percentage of our proceeds [will go] to Sheffield Children's Hospital Charity Fund..."[3] Hopewell has admitted in interviews that ninth track "Where Did Our Love Go?"

is a "painfully honest" account of emotions surrounding founding member Alex Saunders' voluntary decision to leave the band in 2011 but the process of writing the lyrics to the song proved "quite cathartic".

On 11 June 2013, the Crookes announced they had signed their first American recording contract with Austin-based indie label Modern Outsider, stating further that they would be releasing a special version of Hold Fast in America later in 2013 and would be playing live dates there before the end of the year.

"[12] Laura Prior of God is in the TV complimented the whimsy of the release, stating, "In short, if you have a passing interest in placing your arms in upwardly turned right angles and doing the invisible hoola [sic] hoop, this album will pay furious dividends.

The I Love You Bridge is a beautiful closer with a committed, affecting lead vocal from George Waite, and the a cappella intro to American Girls is of equal appeal.

"[16] In her review of Hold Fast, Mary Chang of There Goes the Fear said of the album, "They haven’t changed their sound so much to the point of unrecognisable from their previous releases; what they have done is started playing and writing smarter, both instrumentally and lyrically...With complaints far and wide that guitar rock is dead, ‘Hold Fast’ flies in the face of these ill-begotten rumours and grins widely.