Prior to the release of the band's second album Portamento, it was announced that guitarist Adam Kessler had left The Drums and that many "shouting matches" had occurred between its members, which nearly caused a break-up.

[5] Jacob Graham also started working on his side project Cascading Slopes, releasing their first album Towards a Quaker View of Synthesizers in November 2013.

"[13] Pitchfork described "Magic Mountain" as "The Drums' loudest song to date [...] that posits Encyclopedia as a potentially evil twin of their bleach blonde self-titled debut from 2010.

"[15] AllMusic's Heather Phare considered the album a riskier attempt than Portamento, although "with notably uneven results", and recognized as a problem that the band hasn't delivered anything as good as the initial formula that gave them popularity at their beginnings.

She notes the influence of Graham's synth work from his solo project Cascading Slopes in the album, "which aims for experimental but ends up sounding unfinished."