Matt Collar of AllMusic gave a positive review saying "Echosmith's 2013 debut album, Talking Dreams, introduces a group with an unabashedly youthful take on dance-rock — even though their style pays celebratory tribute to '80s pop music.

Working with producer Mike Elizondo and songwriter Jeffery David, the band's freshman effort is impressively filled out with radio-ready songs that combine U2's chiming guitars, Fleetwood Mac's harmonies, and Killers-style neo-new wave production.

"[1] By contrast, Daniel Bromfield of the Daily Emerald criticized both the album and the band itself as lacking originality, declaring that they were the point where the phrase "indie" was "another meaningless marketing word like "all natural"".

While he admitted that "the formula the band works under can be done right", he remarked that they showed "exactly zero qualities that elevate them above the rest of the pack" and that their lyrics were subpar, saying that most of the songs incorporated overused imagery, while some "are just plain awful."

He notes that the band makes "the kind of polished, laser-guided indie pop that sounds all too familiar", saying that "March Into the Sun", "Bright", and "Come Together" are inspired by other artists, "while the rest congeals into a primary-coloured clump of advert-friendly, frustratingly anonymous background music".