In an interview for Pop Matters with Guy Mankowski Julie Campbell stated that she wanted the album to "crackle with energy and clarity, and retain the intimacy of a home-recorded aesthetic".

She elaborated on her artistic process, saying "some of those songs first existed as four-track home recordings; I was using minimal means and this informed the aesthetic.

I started out with a crappy keyboard and a few other bits and pieces (but no bass guitar) and this small armoury of tools instilled a love of the economical, the stripped, the stark, the trebly and harsh.

"[1] David Raposa of Pitchfork Media awarded Nerve Up a 7.7 rating, praising the album's "wonderful wall-to-wall skittishness" and commenting on its "nervous, contagious energy".

[4]NME reviewer John Doran celebrated "the arrival of a fresh and invigorating voice" and awarded a 9 out of 10 rating.