"Low fidelity has and always will be a huge part of punk, garage rock, and indie music (all three of which Crystal Antlers tend to fall into here). And, who knows, maybe the group simply couldn't afford the engineer they wanted. But, whether the sound quality on Nothing Is Real is intentional or not, the lo-fi rattling smothers the hooks and makes the songs feel suspiciously like demos. By the time things clear up enough to latch on to a track, it's almost over".