Taking influence from the work of soul singer James Brown, vocalist and bassist Kenny Vasoli wrote music for "Direction" that focused on simplistic grooves, rather than the fast-paced nature of the Starting Line's past work. He would show the other members a rough idea, which they would give their opinions of. From this, the bandwould work on the idea and develop it into a song. Watts wanted to break away from their pop punk sound, incorporating delay-driven parts, hammer-ons, pull-offs, complex harmonies, and breakdowns similar to the work of Shudder to Think. Vasoli waited until the drums had been recorded before he wrote any bass parts. Due to the drum parts going through a variety of changes, Vasoli thought it would be better to wait until he was recording the bass before writing parts for it. The album's sound has been described as pop punk, pop rock, with comparisons being drawn to music by Motion City Soundtrack and the All-American Rejects.