The album was produced and recorded remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Mangan stating that "The hard part was waiting; sometimes it took six weeks to resolve an issue that could have taken twenty minutes had we been together in a room. But Drew [Brown]'s dedication and talent cannot be understated, and this music doesn't sound like anything else I'm hearing these days."[2]
The album was preceded by the preview singles "In Your Corner (for Scott Hutchison)", a tribute to Frightened Rabbit bandleader Scott Hutchison following his death in 2018, in April,[3] and "Fire Escape", the video for which starred actor Steven Ogg as a personification of a self-critical inner voice taunting and tormenting Mangan, in July.[4] A third preview song, "Just Know It", was released concurrently with the announcement of the album.[2]