[3][4][5] Jules De Martino stated that they chose Berlin "to have complete, crazy freedom",[6] while Katie White also said that they wanted to "isolate themselves".

De Martino explained: "We wanted to make a record that had that much variety that if you played it you could almost shut your eyes and think: 'Is this the same band on each song?'

"[5][6][7][10] De Martino cited Fleetwood Mac, the Pet Shop Boys and TLC as influences on the album.

[18] However, The duo ultimately cancelled the release of their second album in 2010 and erased previously recorded demos because they felt it sounded too similar to everything else on the radio.

In an interview with Digital Spy, White said, "We were in Berlin where there is a great electro scene, and so we made songs like that, but quickly realised that everything on the radio was Euro-pop shite.

We put out 'Hands', which was meant to be an underground, white label-only release and it ended up being playlisted on Radio 1—we were quite angry so erased over half the album."

"[19] The band went to Spain and started over with writing and recording the album, this time citing Spice Girls and TLC as inspirations.

One piece of art by artist Milan Abad showed both Katie White and Jules De Martino as skeletons, which caught the band's attention and ultimately became the album's artwork.

A music video for the Bag Raiders remix of "Silence" was directed by Dan Gable and filmed at Salford Lads Club in Manchester in July 2011.

"[39] Rolling Stone's Jody Rosen opined that on Sounds from Nowheresville, "the band again is at its best when White is proclaiming [...] and dissing [...] in a voice pitched somewhere between cheerleader, rapper and Tourette's sufferer.

"[46] Heather Phares of AllMusic felt that the "scrappy pop of their first album is largely [...] replaced by a glossy eclecticism that, for better or worse, feels labored over."

"[45] Simon Jay Catling of Drowned in Sound expressed that "despite the fact that the production glitters with the high attention-seeking compression of pop music, any explorations haven't gone as far as finding any memorable hooks—and the ones which do stick in the mind do more so for their sheer irritable inanity", citing the songs "Silence", "One by One" and "In Your Life" as "decent moments".

[40] The Guardian's Alexis Petridis stated that Sounds from Nowheresville "keeps doing the things bands do when they don't really know what to do: concentrating on riffs instead of melodies, production dynamics instead of songs.

"[47] Pitchfork's Hari Ashurst felt that "[t]he restless genre-hopping vibe makes this feel less like an album and more like a series of tracks written to briefs [...] The only common thread is how uniformly bad everything is.