The album was written and recorded during a difficult period in the life of Powers, who was receiving counseling for anxiety which was causing him to develop panic attacks and a debilitating fear of death.

[3] To enable him to save up enough money to record the album with local engineer and friend Jeremy Park, he busked with his keyboard late at night in downtown Boise.

[5] In an effort to capture a "band" feel, the initial recording sessions were made using Pro Tools, with Powers playing keyboards (including a Yamaha full-size electric piano), operating an Alesis SR16 drum machine and singing, while accompanied by Erik Eastman on a Gibson SG guitar.

The Seattle Times described the picture as "a glowing scene captured by a suburban, middle-class kid in love with the moment, wanting to hold it forever".

[14] The video for July was described as "eerily sad" and "A bloody-nosed, apocalyptic affair" and drew comparisons to Lars Von Trier's Melancholia.

[4] After a March 2012 performance at the SXSW festival, Bryan Parker from Pop Press International said of the live show: "When Youth Lagoon began, the crowd was engrossed from the first note.

[20] In his review for Timeout Chicago, Dave Satterwhite was less complimentary, saying that the music was "somewhat dancey, somewhat psychedelic, but not quite anything when the set was over" and that the crowd were "asleep on their feet, waiting for that moment of finality, of happy abandon".

In his Pitchfork review, Mark Richardson said, "The record mixes feelings of protection and safety with the tug of adventure and wraps it in compulsively listenable music that explodes at just the right moments," while Consequence of Sound called the album "charming", saying that it "serves as a whimsical introduction to the magic of Youth Lagoon".

In her review for AllMusic, Heather Phares described the single "Cannons" as "lovely" and said the album was made special by the "vulnerability and empathy that radiate from every song".