Some of the songs that would eventually be recorded for the Ahead of the Lions album originated from the band members' childhood.

The album was recorded by Steve Albini (Nirvana, PJ Harvey, Pixies) and produced by Living Things and Lij Shaw in the Berlin Family Basement in their hometown of St. Louis in February 2005.

As noted by Robert Christgau in the Village Voice, "Lillian Berlin is Johnny Rotten with politics.

His art would be nothing without his rage; he is possessed by the need to get his point across that he grabs his brothers' music by the throat and makes it bellow his tune.

But his rage wouldn't be much without his analyst, which however simplistic-and it is, though at this perilous moment no more so than apolitical cynicism or liberal equivocation-gives shape, purpose, and a referent outside his tortured psyche to feelings that emanate from who knows where."