Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	66/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Consequence of Sound	(C-)
Drowned in Sound	(5/10)
The Guardian
MusicOMH
NME	(6/10)
PopMatters
Slant Magazine
Spin	(7/10)
Tiny Mix Tapes

Never Trust a Happy Song is the debut album by American indie rock band Grouplove. It was released on September 13, 2011 through Canvasback/Atlantic Records. The album garnered a positive reception but critics were divided on the band's musicianship and content being similar to other bands. Never Trust a Happy Song peaked at number 75 on the Billboard 200 and spawned four singles: "Colours", "Tongue Tied", "Lovely Cup" and "Itchin' on a Photograph".

Never Trust a Happy Song received generally positive reviews from music critics but found the band too similar to bands like MGMT, Passion Pit and The Killers, in terms of lyrics and instrumentation. This included Caroline Sullivan, writing for The Guardian, who found some of the content too similar to other bands but praised the minor intricacies in tracks like "Chloe", "Spun" and "Naked Kids": "What it lacks in originality it makes up for in sweet vibes, which may not keep Grouplove going for ever, but is enough for the moment." At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 66, based on 14 reviews. On the positive side, AllMusic journalist Matt Colla praised the band's musicianship for being technically sound and expressive in its genre-mashing, concluding that "Ultimately, Grouplove's Never Trust a Happy Song is a cohesive if ramshackle crowd-pleaser, full of melodic double-lead vocals, handclaps, ringing electric guitars, and staccato synth parts that tips a hat to '80s dance-rock while still retaining the band's obvious love of experimental '60s folk-rock." David Menconi of Spin praised the album's production for carrying exuberant energy to match its happy-go-lucky content, saying that "For all its youthful pathos, Never Trust a Happy Song evokes pop colors bright enough to glow at tempos just short of manic -- even "Slow" doesn't stay that way for long."

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Wikipedia