The Big Pink signed with 4AD in February 2009,[1] and won the prestigious NME Philip Hall Radar Award for best new act.

[3] Prior to the album's release, the band issued three singles: "Too Young to Love"/"Crystal Visions" on the House Anxiety label in October 2008, "Velvet" on 4AD in April 2009, and the non-album track "Stop the World" in June 2009.

The good, the bad, the boring, the exciting, the dreams, the nightmares, the whole thing, and I guess that's what encompasses the whole album, and we have a song called 'A Brief History of Love' so it's apt.

"[5] In addition to the singles "Dominos" and "Velvet", the album features re-recorded versions of previously released tracks "Too Young to Love", "Crystal Visions" and "Countbackwards from Ten".

"[10] Gigwise awarded the album 4 out of 5 stars, and wrote: "It's a testament to the notion of not judging a book by its cover then that The Pink's debut LP is a heavy and gallon deep adventure into a murky darkness which sees stadium pop choruses do battle with industrial noise and an almost constant whirr of feedback.