Pat Revyr of "Deseret News" named "When Your Heart Stops Beating" superior to former bandmate Tom DeLonge's new project, Angels & Airwaves' "We Don't Need to Whisper", and Kelefa Sanneh of "The New York Times" described it as "zippier and catchier" than "Whisper". Both "Rolling Stone" and "The New York Times" opined that both groups, however, paled in comparison to Blink-182. In contrast to "The Daily Princetonian" citing +44 for "lacking originality", "The Avion Newspaper" declared the band as "undoubtedly original [...] and sure to please with every track". Channing Freeman of Sputnikmusic called the album "standard pop punk music", stating it was not a large departure from Blink-182. "NME" wrote that "There are more ideas here than Blink-182 had in an entire career [...] It's just that they're the same ideas that Jimmy Eat World had on their last LP." "Q" was particularly underwhelmed by the record, criticizing Hoppus's vocals: "Hoppus, whose flat vocals once dovetailed deftly with DeLonge's nasal whine, is sorely exposed as a sole frontman."