"Pushing the Senses" contains music in the same rock styles featured on Feeder's 2002 album "Comfort in Sound", but it focuses more on pianos, rather than a string orchestra. Only "Pain on Pain" on the album mainly used strings, including samples from a mellotron. Frontman Grant Nicholas said he did not think the album needed them. He also called the album the band's "Recovery album" as he felt he was more at ease writing the songs than he was with "Comfort in Sound", after the loss of their drummer Jon Lee, alongside stating that he was inspired by artists such as John Lennon within the piano playing and writing the songs. Grant told "Kerrang!" in May 2004, "I've done some recording on my own in a little studio up by where I live in North London. I demo the album in its full form before the rest of the band play on it. It's difficult to know at this stage what it will turn out like, but so far its slightly more mature sounding". Grant later added "Each album is a journey and a reflection of the past, there is some stuff that touches on what has happened, but there are songs about love, songs of loss and songs about the future. I don't want to give too much away but there's one track called "Bitter Glass". Its quite dark but uplifting too. It's about pulling yourself out of a big hole".