James said that "A lot of tracks are quite old-style sounding, I reckon. I’ve done loads of tracks which are really new in style and which don’t sound like anything else but I didn’t want to release those tracks." While acknowledging similarities with his past records, James said that "I haven’t done something in so much detail before." Of the album's complex drum programming, he said "it's quite similar to guitar solos, only with programming you have to use your brain. The most important thing is that it should have some emotional effect on me, rather than just, 'Oh, that's really clever.'"