Band departs from upbeat sound

After three years of touring for Something to Write Home About , the band was beginning to feel burned-out and wished to depart from the upbeat power-pop sound with which they had become associated. They also began to broaden their musical horizons, taking much greater influence from classic rock artists like Led Zeppelin ; “Our musical tastes were expanding, and our songwriting reflected that. We were discovering older bands that were new to us,” said Pryor in 2021. According to Rob Pope, “It was a weird time. We were a bunch of 19, 20, 21-year-old kids…It was this weird formative era where we were challenged by a totally different thing than Thurston Moore and Ian Mackaye . “We were all going through our, like bullshit Beatles phase, and unfortunately we were doing that in public.”