Following two New Year's shows December 31 and January 1 at Schubas Tavern in Chicago, the band decided to discontinue touring in support of Post-Nothing, and return to Vancouver to begin work on a new album.

[15] The duo cited disillusion with Vancouver, as well as the difficulty of returning to a sedentary lifestyle following two years of continuous touring, as the primary motivations for the move.

To me, the progression lies in the songwriting, the captured performances, and the mixing/production of the album, all of which are simply reflections of our shared knowledge and experience since recording Post-Nothing.

[18][19][4][20] Critic Steven Hyden described Celebration Rock as "taking a mighty lunge at the pantheon of great rock records," commenting that the album "addresses the teenage wasteland with the bombastic mix of fury and empathy that derives from Who's Next; traffics in the same streetwise rock-patter drivel originating from Born to Run; has the drunkard's sentimentality of Let It Be, and the tour-weary determinism of Appetite for Destruction.

It's a beefy, pop-conscious punk record in the mold of Nevermind, and it's destined to become, like White Blood Cells, an important battle in the never-ending war to end bass playing as we know it.

As Ian Cohen of Pitchfork noted, "Japandroids have gone from having almost none at all [lyrics] to packing their songs with an astonishing command of legend and literalism that all but dares you to feel something.

"[4] Regarding his use of language and themes, King stated: Personally, I really like the concepts of good and evil, heaven and hell -- the extreme boundaries of how people can feel and how fast things can change.

On June 8, 2012, the band performed the songs "Fire's Highway" and "The House That Heaven Built" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

[28] On February 27, 2013, it was announced that "The House That Heaven Built" had temporarily been named the entrance theme for the Vancouver Canucks professional ice hockey team.

Cohen continued: "[I]n writing about something other than the experience of being Japandroids, the duo taps into a power greater than itself to address impossibly vast and elemental topics-- friendship, lust, revenge, art, self-actualization-- with songs every bit as big.

"[43] Megan Ritt of Consequence of Sound felt that the band had "retained the energy that pulses below the surface of the best tracks on Post-Nothing and infused it with more focus.

But elsewhere the power-chord pummelage gets a bit one-note — and The Gun Club cover only reminds us that journeymen like these have no business dancing with the bones of Jeffrey Lee Pierce.

"[42] Now's Carla Gillis criticized the album's repetitiveness, writing "[..] the band's refusal ever to let up on volume, bombast, group-shouted vocals, fast-strummed chords or smashing drums makes Celebration Rock an exhausting sonic assault in need of variety.