Many of the album's songs were written as a direct reaction to the pop success of the band's previous LP "East" and feature unusual, experimental arrangements. Singer Barnes said, "the whole band, particularly Don, decided to revolt against the pop formula when we made "Circus Animals"." Walker said, "There was no way of improving what we'd done on "East", so we had to think of new things to try." Elsewhere, he added, "If we’d taken those same set of lessons and applied them to the same sort of record it would’ve got more slick and lost the spontaneity. The only way to remain fresh is to smash all those rules, go back and start something else. Maybe bring that to fruition or maybe you’ll fail." Barnes noted, "It's not way out, not ridiculously experimental. It's all been done before, just not by us."