Moreover, Strawberry Jam engineer Scott Colburn, who also worked with the band to record the predecessor Feels, knew Wave Lab's owner.

"[7] The group, particularly Josh Dibb, struggled during the recording of Strawberry Jam, with Portner stating it was "the first time we ran into a situation where we weren’t completely satisfied with what was happening".

However, label manager Peter Berard assured the band the songs were "incredible", noting that they had a clarity that was absent from previous albums, and that they would appeal to newcomers and possibly expand their commercial potential.

Regarding the songs' absences, singer and guitarist Avey Tare/David Portner wrote to fans that the band recorded studio versions for both, but decided against including them on the album, "partially due to their length[s]".

"Safer" was eventually released as the B-side of the album's first single, "Peacebone", while "Street Flash" and other studio leftovers appeared on the 2008 EP Water Curses.

Geologist wrote on the Collected Animals board that the first batch of promotional copies were watermarked, and that each journalist's name would be digitally embedded in any extracted files.

[16] In a positive review, Mark Richardson of Pitchfork described the band as having mastered "its distinctive experimental approach to songwriting, folding celebration, longing, doubt, loss, and acceptance into complex hooks and choruses.

[27] AllMusic's Thom Jurek called Strawberry Jam the band's "most primal yet most sophisticated record... to date," and praised the unresolved tension pitting Panda Bear's "bubbling sunshine pop" and "goodwill toward everything" against "[Avey] Tare's utter sense of alienation, his strangeness -- and estrangement -- from the limits and inconveniences of the human body and its politics, and his questioning of his own place in human relationships and interactions.

"[25] Mojo called it "an album of mischievous melody, fairground keyboards, cut'n'paste aural collage and an undeniable love of pop all but buried in junk shop Dadaist clatter.