On 14 December 2008, the band announced by Myspace bulletin that their fourth album would be released by 31 March 2009. The name of the new album, "A Shipwreck in the Sand", was announced on 29 January 2009, when the band concluded a viral marketing campaign by announcing the track listing via an album website, also revealing it would be a concept album. Along with the demo of "Broken Stars", which the band had been performing during their final U.S. tour in support of "Arrivals and Departures", short clips of the songs "Vices", "Born Dead" and "American Dream" were made available on MySpace On 17 March, the band filmed a music video for "Vices" with director Robby Starbuck. Later, on 23 March 2009, the band posted the full album to stream on their official MySpace page.