Development on a follow-up album languished due to interpersonal disputes, line-up changes and Frischmann's heroin addiction during the late 1990s.

They released their first single, "Stutter", in October 1993, which benefited from the promotional efforts of BBC Radio 1 DJ and Deceptive Records label boss Steve Lamacq, who discovered the band earlier that year.

In 1994, they released two UK Top 20 singles, "Line Up" and "Connection", and performed on numerous radio shows.

[7] Notably, Wire's "I Am the Fly" has a chorus similar to Elastica's "Line Up" and the intro synthesizer part in Elastica's "Connection" (later also repeated on guitar) is lifted from the guitar riff in Wire's "Three Girl Rhumba" and transposed a semitone, while "Waking Up" bore a marked resemblance to the Stranglers' song "No More Heroes".

"[8] Another member of The Stranglers, Jet Black, even thanked Elastica in Melody Maker for bringing attention to his old band.

[5] Citing exhaustion, Annie Holland quit the band in early August 1995 and was replaced for the remainder of the tour by session bassist Abby Travis.

[4] After playing more shows and demoing new material in the first half of 1996, Elastica entered the studio in the later part of the year to begin work on their second album.

[4] As a tribute to the "lost years" of the band, a self-titled six-track EP appeared in August 1999, collecting a variety of recordings from a multitude of aborted sessions.

[12][13] In October 2001, following fruitless sessions for an intended third Elastica album, the band announced their amicable break-up, owing to exhaustion from touring and disappointing sales of The Menace.

[14] The band's farewell single, "The Bitch Don't Work", was released by Wichita Recordings in November 2001.

[22] On 21 January 2017, the band's official Facebook page posted photos featuring three-quarters of the original line-up – Matthews, Holland and Welch – during a visit to Abbey Road Studios in London.