"Gem is by no means a debut for U.S. Girls, but it's easily the most polished, traditional, and realized work from the project yet, hiding the prickly noise edges that defined earlier albums under layers of studio gloss and easily recognizable pop ... The song-by-song stylistic hopping makes Gem something of a mixed bag, but also keeps the momentum of the album going where earlier U.S. Girls recordings could sometimes lag. Remy's greatest gift has always been her unique ability to dismantle and reassemble the pop form in a single song, and Gem is the most vivid document of that gift yet".