Although it was more a Jon Oliva's solo effort, the album was released on August 16, 1994 as the eighth Savatage album. Oliva could not appear as a band member for contractual problems and so the sleeve and booklet included photos of both Wacholz and Middleton to maintain a more "classic" Savatage line-up feeling to the release. Wacholz is also in the video for the song "Handful of Rain". Jeff Plate, a former bandmate of Stevens, did not play the drums on the album, but was pictured as part of the band line-up in the European edition of the album. Plate would become a full-fledged member of the band by the time of their next release, "Dead Winter Dead" in 1995.