The first recording sessions took place in March 2003, but were mostly unproductive due to passive aggression between band members and a general lack of direction.

They reunited under producer John King in Los Angeles and, following a guest appearance by Dave Grohl on "Bad Boyfriend", they found a renewed focus on production.

Garbage recruited drummer Matt Walker and bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen for new recording sessions and completed the album by late 2004.

[3] Before the tour started, the band spent two weeks at Smart Studios—their recording studio in Madison, Wisconsin—to write new material for their upcoming album.

[5] Recording for the album was halted during the summer when Manson underwent surgery to remove a cyst on her right vocal cord, forcing her to recuperate until August 2003.

[13] At the beginning of 2004, the band decided to try to salvage the album, taking their management's suggestion to work with an external producer for the first time.

[16] The band said his performance was "raising the bar" for the record,[6] and Vig said that Grohl "brought a different energy level to the song", which Erikson and Steve Marker tried to follow with their guitar playing.

[5] Vig said that the tensions led the band members to become "burned out on each other", and that reuniting made them feel able to play "fast and furious—as if our lives depended on it".

[17] Manson overcame her writer's block and began to inject political slants into her lyrics, matching them with some new material the band wrote immediately after the King sessions; both "Metal Heart" and "Boys Wanna Fight" referenced the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.

[19] Feeling that previous album Beautiful Garbage seemed fractured, the band decided to use their live sound; Vig said that he wanted "the pumping energy that all the best raw rock records have".

The musicians composed separately at their home studios, sending each other tracks through e-mail and couriers, and the band returned to Wisconsin to finish the album.

Bleed Like Me is a departure from the heavily electronic music of previous albums Version 2.0 and Beautiful Garbage in favor of a basic alternative rock sound.

[6] Vig still thought that some of the songs resembled the band's earlier material, such as "Metal Heart", with "a lot of weird electronics that Steve and Duke did, as well as some pretty gnarly guitar.

"[29] The lyrics of Bleed Like Me talk about relationships and political themes; Manson said, "the last few years ... have been very worrying and you'd have to be dead to not have some kind of political view at the moment",[30] and that after many years being insecure about articulating her feelings writing lyrics,[19] she found herself confident that she could express her ideas and sentiment of being "very out of kilter with a lot of the common thoughts of today" in her music.

[11] "Boys Wanna Fight" criticizes world affairs and "Sex Is Not the Enemy" is about moral guardians,[6] inspired by the outcry caused by Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the 2004 Super Bowl.

The tour visited North America, Europe and Australia,[17] and encompassed headline performances, rock festivals, and television and radio shows.

[15] Former Jane's Addiction bassist Eric Avery left Alanis Morissette's backing band to perform with Garbage for the tour.

[34] After being initially organized low-key,[29] the tour was moved into large venues when Bleed Like Me and its lead single "Why Do You Love Me" became surprise hits outside the United States.

[50] Rolling Stone's David Fricke commented that "the first two-thirds of Bleed Like Me is easily the best sustained run of studio Garbage since the opening half of their 1995 debut", but that the final tracks had "a sameness—a feeling of roaring in circles".

[2] Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic wrote that the album was enjoyable if outdated in its musical approach "as if the band doesn't quite know how to do anything else but sound like it's the heyday of post-grunge alt-rock.

[56] Betty Clarke of The Guardian wrote, "while Manson's changeling vocals are always worth listening to, Garbage's songs often aren't.