At
Metacritic, a
review aggregator which assigns a
normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
average score of 63, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". The album
charted at 85 on the
UK Albums Chart in its opening week. Writing for
AllMusic, Matt Collar called the album "more like the D.I.Y.-debut of a new indie rock band than the third effort of an established singer/songwriter", but went on to say "she hasn't sacrificed any of the personal, intimate lyrics that marked the best of her early songs." Jenny Stevens of
NME agreed with Collar, saying
Girl Talk has "shouts" and "moments of intimacy". Matt Ryan of
The A.V. Club noted that the tone of the album's songs moved "toward[s] more aggressive, moody rock" and further away from the tone of Nash's previous albums
Made of Bricks and
My Best Friend Is You. Christopher Monk of
musicOMH agreed that the album "[put] clear blue water between the Nash of old [...] and the new Nash". He gave the album two out of five stars and said that
Girl Talk's main problem was that its songs were "not, on the whole, any good." ==Chart performance==