The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, media coverage of the 2015 general election in the United Kingdom, and various mass shootings influenced its writing.

The upbeat sound of the music was composed to provide contradiction to the violent subject matter, and is inspired by artists such as Radiohead, Suicide, and Kendrick Lamar.

Get to Heaven was well received by critics, with most reviewers noting the effectiveness of the album's message; others commented on its bold, aggressive nature, with some labelling the tone "overwhelming".

[9][10] Everything Everything went into the studio aiming to "make people want to move", and set about avoiding slower-paced songs that had featured strongly on their previous album.

[12] Higgs later discussed how they used their previous sound to inform the direction of Get to Heaven, seeking to avoid "quiet songs" and "tenderness" in an effort to "inject a new fire into ourselves".

[5] As Price was based in Los Angeles, the band emailed him samples of their work for him to critique and receive his suggested mixes in return.

[14] For certain tracks, Robertshaw said their aim was "to sound like changing radio stations", toying with various musical ideas in one song in the same style as Kendrick Lamar.

"[7] Higgs named Suicide's 1977 single "Frankie Teardrop" as a major influence on the album's sound, describing it as "genuinely scary music": "It's a song: I shouldn't be feeling like this.

[15] Radiohead's influence on the record was commented on further by Laura Snapes at Pitchfork, who noted the use of a "paranoid guitar solo borrowed from Hail to the Thief".

[2][17] In other sections of the album, they experimented with other genres; Ludovic Hunter-Tilney of the Financial Times noted the "Talking Heads-style Afro-pop" of title track "Get to Heaven".

Robertshaw told Chamberlain that "[it] is a bit of a signature for the new record... You can do totally unrealistic things with it and it makes you sound like Steve Vai on crack.

[24] The album's opening track, "To the Blade", has often been cited as focusing on the death of Manchester-born aid worker Alan Henning at the hands of ISIL's "Jihadi John"; Higgs explained to Drowned in Sound that: "He was a taxi driver from Stockport, I could have met him.

"[11] However, Higgs later went on to say that Henning acted as more of a general inspiration for the album, and the song in particular was written as "...a letter to someone who is close [to] a person who's done something terrible...It's something people won't consider for a second - that they could be one of these monsters if they were in different circumstances.

[20] "No Reptiles" supposes that political leaders are "just fat, bald, old men, like soft-boiled eggs, that are just weak-willed, with no strong feelings (good or ill)";[20] its lyrics also make cryptic reference to Elliot Rodger, who carried out the 2014 Isla Vista killings.

[16] "Fortune 500" documents a fictional attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II, which Higgs relates to the thoughts of suicide bombers moments before they detonate: "The horror of the doubt is far worse than the act, for the terrorist I mean.

[31] The album's first single, "Distant Past", was debuted on 17 February 2015 on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show, with the official music video released later that day through YouTube.

[37] Liner notes, which included large-type excerpts of the album's lyrics on bright gradients, were designed by Johnny Costello of Adult Art Club "to echo high impact religious posters".

[41][42] Everything Everything announced a string of United Kingdom touring dates to promote Get to Heaven, scheduled for 7–21 November 2015, culminating with a show at the O2 Apollo Manchester.

[44][45] The American release was promoted with the group's first tour of the United States, playing fifteen dates in support of Welsh indie rock band The Joy Formidable.

[53] The Telegraph's Helen Brown commented that "the lads have given this album everything, everything and then some",[51] while Andrew Backhouse of DIY called it "a masterpiece": "this is in a new gear to what their younger selves – or any other band today – could ever dream of.

Laura Snapes of Pitchfork wrote that these can be "overwhelming", though she credited them for "attempting to offer a nuanced understanding of a broken world at a time when a lot of their significantly less imaginative British indie rock peers say worse than nothing".

[49] Uncut praised the band's "innovative songcraft", but added "their tendency to overthink and squeeze every drop of pleasure from their work does them few favours",[55] while Mojo suggested that they were "self-consciously dialing everything up to 11 before things go up in flames".

[64] Singles "Distant Past" and "Regret" peaked in the United Kingdom at numbers 88 and 119, respectively, while "Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread" failed to chart.