[5] Eginton wrote the bass lines for "Violence of the Red Sea",[4] inspired by funk and "prog-psych" bands from the UK and Europe.

[5] The song, which had been included in the band's concert setlist for the last few years prior to recording,[3] was named after the combination of riffs and tempos which "collid[ed] together like an angry sea".

[5] "Equus October" was born out of a song that the band were considering discarding because they were never able to finish it[6] until they entered the studio and changed their minds, wanting more material on the album.

[3][6] They decided to use a riff from it only as an interlude that ran 30 seconds long, but they came up with more ideas about what to do with it during the mixing process, eventually increasing the length of the song.

Once Mitchell also began adding material to the song, Rubalcaba felt it started taking on a "strong & majestic yet mournful" sensation, almost as if it were about a ritualistic sacrifice.

He described the mixture of influences in the song as "A supreme psycho-delic buffet served up with all the sour Kraut, all the freshest sushi Japan has to offer & what not".

[8] "Though the silence may have been deafening for their small but devoted cadre of fans, the wait was worth every moment," wrote Erik Highter for PopMatters, who described the chemistry between the band members as "near telepathic connections between the players" and the roles of Eginton and Rubalcaba as "pulling" Mitchell back from potential unrestrained solos.

[9] Conversely, Grayson Currin of Pitchfork Media said that the rhythm section did not serve to restrain Mitchell at times, but to "instead follow his ecstatic lead everywhere, fellow travelers on his odyssey of enthusiasms".

[11] eMusic contributor Dan Epstein rated the album 4.5 stars out of 5 and described the interaction between band members similarly to Highter and Currin, saying that, while Mitchell's guitar leads are prominent, Eginton and Rubalcaba are "locked-in" with him and each other, "never los[ing] focus or intensity for a second — not even during the rolling 30-minute title track.

[13] Karen A. Mann also wrote, for the heavy metal section of About.com, that the opening track was the band's peak performance on the album, which she rated 4 out of 5.

[27] The band had planned a tour of Japan with Eternal Elysium, but were forced to cancel the engagement to tend to ill family members; they rescheduled it for January 2015.