[1][2] Lead Sean Solomon stated that the sound of the album was influenced from attending the LA punk rock venue The Smell and bands including Abe Vigoda and No Age.

[9] Paul Simpson of Allmusic described the album as a "powerful debut" and "alarmingly focused set of tense, bitter post-punk tunes", highlighting the "deep questions" around relationships posed in Solomon's lyrics.

[10] Calling it a "strikingly accomplished debut", Cole Waterman of PopMatters commended the energy of the album's "rolling instrumentation" and "immediate hooks" as an appropriate dichotomy to the dour and "direct derision" of the lyrics, although noting it could sometimes "veer toward juvenilia".

[17] Joe Goggins of DIY viewed the album to be a "cohesive record" with a "lot of polish", but considered it to be derivative of existing post punk bands including Preoccupations and Women.

[14] Similarly, Ben Lynch of The Line of Best Fit noted that in spite of the "flashes of brilliance", the album possessed a "lack of dynamism" and "absence of ideas", considering the lyrics to be "lost amid the wall of noise".