Five singles were released from the album: "Piss Off", "Johnny Delusional", "Collaborations Don't Work", "Call Girl", and "Police Encounters".
While searching for a dentist in San Francisco, Alex Kapranos, a member of Franz Ferdinand, was found by Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks.
[12] "Collaborations Don't Work" was as the third single on 27 April and was first played during the Radcliffe & Maconie programme on BBC Radio 6 Music.
[20] At Consequence of Sound, Ryan Bray writes:It's evident from the outset that things on FFS are going to work out just fine, and the record keeps that momentum flowing largely through to the end.
Both acts insist that FFS isn't a one-off musical play date, that they're invested in the project as a full-time thing.
[6] Writing for NOW, Carla Gillis writes that:It might be too weird for the average FF fan – "Dictator's Son" is total nerd prog, for example, and most of the songs take sharp turns – but others will find that the pair-up has revitalised FF's sound and taken it in a far more interesting direction while also giving an overdue spotlight to Sparks.
Vocal duties are seamlessly shared between FF's Alex Kapranos and Sparks' Russell Mael, a shockingly smooth passing of the baton in every song.
"[22] Writing for The Independent, Andy Gill wrote that, musically, the album is:an almost seamless blend of the two groups' styles, variations on a sort of operatic indie-electropop, which recalls variously Freedom of Choice-era Devo, chattering Kraftwerk techno and, in the more melancholy environs inhabited by "Little Guy from the Suburbs", a whiff of Leonard Cohen.
Russell Mael's and Alex Kapranos's voices likewise braid pleasingly on their shared songs, while both parties seem to have egged each other on lyrically, with songs about a dictator's son living large, a Japanese girl toting a "Hello Kitty Uzi", and a litany of "Things I Won't Get" that includes both luxuries (a Bentley Arnage), qualities (celebrity) and theories ("Schoenberg and twelve-tone and such"), all supposedly outweighed by the solace of a partner's love.