Reception

Torches has received generally favorable reviews, according to Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

 who gave it an aggregate score of 70. It debuted at number 8 on the Billboard 200 chart

Billboard 200

The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...

, and sold 33,000 copies in the first week. Allmusic described the album as a "catchy, electro-lite dance-pop that fits nicely next to such contemporaries as MGMT

MGMT

MGMT is an American alternative rock band founded by Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden. After the release of their first album, the members of their live band, Matthew Asti, James Richardson and Will Berman, joined the core band in the studio...

 and Phoenix

Phoenix (band)

Phoenix is a Grammy Award winning French indie rock band from Versailles, founded by Thomas Mars, Deck d'Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz.-Formation and early years:...

." Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

said, "their debut is genre-­juggling, bedroom-dance-floor magic cut with moody-boy lyrics".

U2

U2

U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

 guitarist The Edge

The Edge

David Howell Evans , more widely known by his stage name The Edge , is a musician best known as the guitarist, backing vocalist, and keyboardist of the Irish rock band U2. A member of the group since its inception, he has recorded 12 studio albums with the band and has released one solo record...

 singled Torches out as one of his favorite records, calling it "a very interesting new album. Very 21st century pop, but it's beautifully made and thrilling. You see, we're always interested in the new thing..."

The album was nominated for the 2012 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album

Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album

The Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums in the alternative rock genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...

, while "Pumped Up Kicks" received a nomination for Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance

Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance

The Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance is a new category in the annual Grammy Awards ceremony from 2012.It combines the previous categories for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals....

.

Charting

Chart (2011)	Peak position
Australian Albums Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...	9
Belgian Albums Chart Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts...  (Flanders)	69
Belgian Albums Chart Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts...  (Wallonia)	99
Canadian Albums Chart Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS...	7
Dutch Albums Chart MegaCharts MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top...	53
French Albums Chart	55
Irish Albums Chart Irish Albums Chart The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically...	13
Mexican Albums Chart	63
New Zealand Albums Chart	27
Swiss Albums Chart Swiss Music Charts The Swiss Music Charts are Switzerland's main music sales charts. The charts are a record of the highest-selling singles and albums in various genres in Switzerland.The Swiss Charts include:* Singles Top 75...	61
UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...	24
US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	8
US Billboard Rock Albums	1
US Billboard Alternative Albums	1