Adventures in Your Own Backyard was recorded almost entirely in a home studio next door to Watson's apartment in the Plateau neighbourhood of Montreal, Quebec.

The videos will combine musical performances as well as documentary elements and are inspired by American filmmaker David Lynch's 2009 web series Interview Project.

The songs of Adventures in Your Own Backyard are described as "boisterous and pretty, alive and roaming, fairytales with Watson’s skimming falsetto",[2] and continue in the band's signature style of cinematic and orchestral pop.

[4][19] Like the band's previous release, Wooden Arms, the album contains a few unusual instruments, including a glass marimba on one track, but in general features less of the experimental sound, opting instead for "an eloquent, perhaps deceptive, simplicity"[19] and more mature production.

[18] Writing for The Globe and Mail, music critic Brad Wheeler noted the band's stylistic changes, calling Adventures in Your Own Backyard "a dreamy bath of chamber-pop and fancy cabaret, less clacky without the kitchen-utensil or bike-wheel percussion of Wooden Arms and slightly more grounded than Close to Paradise".

[22] The track "Strange Crooked Road" contains stories from the family of a friend of the band, while "Words in the Fire" was written at a campfire in northern Quebec.

[22] In addition, the album's lyrics were intended to provoke the listener into taking a second look at the world around them, which Watson explains by saying, "Fundamentally, I’d like to write songs that people can carry with them in their daily life and bring them some sort of adventure.

I hope my music can allow people to catch little details, like when they’re walking down the street, and bring a little bit of creativity and magic to the everyday world.