In July 2009, Havok released a statement saying that after two years of writing and recording, the upcoming album would be released on September 29, 2009. It was recorded with producer David Bottrill (who was later dismissed in favor of Joe McGrath and Jacknife Lee). AFI previewed "Crash Love" on their MySpace page for two days starting September 22, 2009, seven days ahead of the official album release. In regard to the process of writing the album, Puget said "I've got my guitar and [Davey's] got his tape recorder ... anything can happen. We don't know what kind of song we're going to write; it could be the best song you've ever written or nothing, just the amount of possibilities is exciting to me."