In 2011, she released a split 12" EP with fellow Montreal based musician d'Eon, Darkbloom and, beginning in May,[11] opened for Swedish singer Lykke Li on her North American Tour,[12][13] and the following August her debut album was re-released through No Pain in Pop Records, in CD and vinyl format for the first time.

[13] Growing frustrated with touring and a lack of stability in her life, Boucher began work on Visions in August 2011 over three weeks at her home in Montreal.

Overriding everything I’d done previously, too" stating the album "is a pretty good representation of the beginning of the future.”[1] Visions was recorded using Apple's GarageBand, primarily using a Roland Juno-G keyboard, vocal pedals, and a sampler.

[48][51] The video debuted on March 2, 2012, and shows Grimes amongst shirtless frat boys,[51] as well as in a men's locker room surrounded by weightlifting athletes.

[52] "Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can't be, and part of it was asserting this abstract female power in these male-dominated arenas—the video is somewhat about objectifying men.

[53] It takes place in a "barren, greywashed" landscape, and features Grimes wearing one of the "pussy rings" she designed in collaboration with Montreal-based jeweler and sculptor Morgan Black.

In the video, Grimes is seen alongside a group of friends while driving an Escalade in the desert, holding an albino python in the back of a limousine, and posing in the woods.

"[57] Visions' album cover was designed by Grimes herself and took her fourteen hours while she watched films like Silence of the Lambs, The Shining, and Enter the Void.

It seems so agonized.”[58] About the meaning of the cover, she stated that “It represents based, disgusting dead humanity in the most basic form...this idea of death no one understands but everyone is obsessed with.”[58] The line across the top reads "I love" in Russian.

[63] Lindsay Zoladz of Pitchfork awarded the album a "Best New Music" designation, claiming it "showcases a streamlined aesthetic, resulting in a statement that feels focused, cohesive, and assured.

Club's Evan Rytlewski commented that on Visions, Grimes "continues her march toward accessibility, rendering hazy, quixotic sketches into tangible, hook-heavy electro-pop".

[66] Clash's Matthew Bennett wrote, "With 4AD's renewed vigor in all affairs electronique and Boucher's coherent elevation in both song quality and hook there'll be no stopping this creative, sensual explosion of humanity called Grimes.

"[65] Benjamin Boles of Now called the album "richly textured and inventive", noting that "while Visions is unmistakably 2012 sonically in its references to R&B and hip-hop, it also fits remarkably gracefully into 4AD's impressive back catalogue of dream pop".

"[67] Matt James of PopMatters praised the album as "an absolute blast" and opined, "Sure, it could have done without some of the interludes [...] but its overall sense of ambition is intoxicating.

[64] Eric Harvey of Spin wrote, "The pervasive sense on Visions is of a young woman carefully pushing out of her own introversion, which makes the moments where she sings from the gut instead of the throat [...] or strives for human-on-human sensuality [...] all the more thrilling".

[32] Kevin Liedel of Slant Magazine viewed the album as "a flawed but intimate glimpse into the fantasies of its creator, and while it might not act as a springboard to greater fame for Grimes, it's just as satisfying to hear her take her bedroom music into a darkened basement, away from the prying world.

"[71] However, Luke Winkie of Under the Radar felt that Visions "isn't as much of an evolution as it is an elongation; Boucher is still making warped, sparsely-populated electro-pop, and the potential still outweighs the content", adding that the album "stands as a half-formed concept".

[31] Reyan Ali of The Phoenix stated that "the ever-fascinating Boucher clearly has unusual ideas sloshing around her skull", but ultimately criticized the album as "unnecessarily oblique, listlessly long (48 minutes!

[78] British magazine Fact ranked Visions the 26th best album of 2012 and commented it "moved beyond the circumstantially lo-fi character of her early offerings Geidi Primes and Halfaxa for a profoundly inventive and just plain weird take on electro-pop.

[80] "Oblivion" was ranked the best song of 2012 by both Pitchfork and PopMatters; the former called it "beautifully fragmented" and stating it "sound[s] both chilly and machine-like but also radiate[s] human warmth and imperfection",[81] while the later opined that "this nouveau dream pop triumph is surely the album's calling card, the definitive encapsulation of everything that makes the record (not to mention the musician behind it) so beguiling to listen to".