Sam Cohen, Jesse Gallagher, and Jeremy Black originally met in 1997 in Boston, where the three were attending a Berklee College of Music summer performance program.

The album was recorded in Katonah, New York in a barn which the band converted into a studio, and produced by Andy Edelstein, a professor at Berklee.

The New York Times described their sound as "bouncy 60's-style melodies crack wide open, breaking into outbursts of pummeling and feedback before jumping back into the tune.

In November 2005, it was named to the Amazon.com Best of 2005: Editors' Picks in Rock list at number 5[3] and the band was featured in Rolling Stone as an "Artist to Watch".

[citation needed] In 2006, Apollo Sunshine toured with The Slip and Sam Champion en route to SXSW.