[3] The album was produced by The National at Long Pond studio in upstate New York and features guest appearances from Sufjan Stevens, Phoebe Bridgers, and Taylor Swift.

[5] Work on a ninth National album was initially stalled while Berninger navigated "a very dark spot where I couldn't come up with lyrics or melodies at all.

[10] Created by the design company Pentagram, the front cover of First Two Pages of Frankenstein features a photograph of a young boy holding a mannequin's head.

listed the album cover as 24th worst of the year, quoting journalist Matty Monroe's tweet comparing it to those of Walk the Moon, Cold War Kids, Cage the Elephant, Twenty One Pilots, Grouplove and Fitz and the Tantrums.

[13] The National first teased the album on social media on January 13, 2023, with a video of Berninger reading Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein on a piano bench.

The unlocked page featured an image of an open book with text mirroring Shelley's novel, but written as a letter addressed "To Mrs. Bridgers, England" and mentioning people named "Taylor" and "Uncle Sufjan".

Like Frankenstein and his monster, the commitment to the design and blueprint of this record is incredible; every minute detail, sound, glitch, has been selected with the utmost care by The National".

[31] Reviewing the album for AllMusic, editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine declared that, "Melodies aren't absent, but they're not forceful, they're sung as suggestions.

Forward movement is achieved through shifts in texture and feel, momentum created through layers of harmony and weaving acoustic instruments through electronic beddings.