[1][2][3] The band has stated that Goths was inspired by an adolescence listening to The Cure, Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Joy Division, as well as hearing songs on the radio station KROQ-FM.

On "Abandoned Flesh", they sing: The Cure's Robert Smith may be "secure at his villa in France" and Siouxsie Sioux "had enough hits to keep the bills paid".

[7] Bassist Peter Hughes described the album's theme as goth, covering the bands that "never made it out of Fender's Ballroom, the Gene Loves Jezebels of the world—the ones whose gothic paths were overtaken by the realities of life, or of its opposite.

Various social media posts by Darnielle in 2017-18 allude to nagging tendinitis as a factor in the decision to eschew guitars, in addition to a broader desire to impose a creative constraint on himself in the spirit of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies.

The album was announced by Merge on February 22, 2017, after which the second track, "Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds", was released for streaming on the band's Bandcamp page.