With an arrangement of eleven violins, three cellos and three violas, conducted by Daniele Luppi, the orchestra recorded music for "Leave It Alone", "The Changing Lights", "Lazy Wonderland", "The Angel and the Fool" and "The Remains of Rock and Roll".

The initial sketches of the artwork, which reflects Psychedelic themes of the 1960s and 70s and synthetic Space art, originally inspired Mercer and Burton to take on elements of Retro-futurism in their work, which led to the band recording the album with instruments from the 60s/70s time period.

James Mercer stated to Australian radio station Triple J: After the Disco was officially unveiled by the band and Columbia Records on October 8, 2013,[9][10] after much media and fan speculation.

[18] Edna Gunderson of USA Today rated the album three-and-a-half stars out of four, writing that the band "raise their game" on the release "by simply delivering fatter hooks, juicier melodies, dreamier vocals and more of the dark shimmer that enveloped the duo's 2010 debut.

"[23] At Rolling Stone, Jon Dolan rated the album three-and-a-half stars out of five, stating that the release "is at once sleek and world-weary, often homing in on that sexy moment of malaise when the Seventies wanted to turn into the Eighties so badly but didn't quite know how to do it yet.

[24] Larry Fitzmaurice of Pitchfork echoed this sentiment, stating that "After the Disco is a more cohesive record, and that turns out to be the problem: Mercer and Burton's eccentricities have been sanded down to a single, flattened plane.