Pulses is the debut full-length studio album by American musical duo Karmin, released on March 25, 2014, by Epic Records.
At USA Today, Brian Mansfield rated the album two-and-a-half stars out of four, writing that on the release the duo "prove to be better at tweaking pop parameters than redefining them.
"[17] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic rated the album two stars out of five, saying that the duo "seem far away from the jokey upstarts that swept the digital nation in 2011, and that's the problem: these are fun songs but they could've been by anybody.
"[14] At Rolling Stone, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd rated the album one-and-a-half stars out of five, stating that the duo has a "goofy shtick [that] is to decontextualize sounds from other genres until they're utterly meaningless."
"[16] Ken Capobianco of The Boston Globe gave a negative review of the album, writing that "The result is a record with zero vision or identity" because "Of course many pop thrills are ephemeral, but this is a weightless collection filled with numerous trite lyrics (intentionally campy?)
"[18] At Knoxville News Sentinel, Chuck Campbell rated the album three stars out of five, stating that even though "Most individual tracks have something going for them, but as a whole, the contrived nature of the arrangements takes its toll, and 'Pulses' loses its overall appeal.