King Crimson's Robert Fripp made a guest appearance on guitar, and the cover was the first of several by the band to feature the artwork of Paul Whitehead.

The group's previous album, The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other (February 1970) had achieved a small amount of commercial success and critical acclaim in the UK and Europe.

[4] They started to develop a live following during 1970, counting film director Anthony Minghella as one of their fans, but things backfired after a show at the Royal Festival Hall in June that drew negative reviews from Melody Maker's Chris Welch.

The track was a composite of a basic song structure written by group leader Peter Hammill in 1968, an old song written by founding member Judge Smith called "A Cloud as Big as a Man's Hand", and a rock riff composed by organist Hugh Banton that he later said was influenced by The Move's "Brontosaurus".

[7] Hammill wrote "The Emperor in His War Room" about a tyrant who tortures people indiscriminately but is ultimately haunted by those he has tormented.

[9] "We are the ones they're going to builda statue forTen centuries agoOr were going to fifteen forward" "Pioneers Over c" was co-written by Hammill and saxophonist David Jackson.

The song had a strong science fiction premise and was about a group of astronauts who travel faster than the speed of light (hence the "c" in the title) on a relativistic one-way journey that takes them beyond the physical universe.

[6] Hammill wanted King Crimson's guitarist and bandleader Robert Fripp to play on "The Emperor In His War Room".

In July, they played at the Munich and Aachen Festivals with Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and Fairport Convention.

[15] Immediately after the show, bassist Nic Potter quit the band, before the album was completed (he played on the already recorded tracks "Killer", "The Emperor in His War Room" and "Lost").

[18] To further expand the sound, Jackson started working with electric saxophones, playing them through effects boxes including a wah-wah.

The front cover was a painting he had already completed, called "Birthday", which showed a beam of light focusing on London, illustrating Whitehead's birth.

One of the additions is a studio version of "Squid / Octopus", a song that had been a staple of early Van der Graaf Generator concerts.

Melody Maker praised "the brilliance of the songs",[20] Sounds enjoyed Jackson's sax playing, and Record Mirror thought the band would be "one of the groups most likely to succeed in 1971".

"[2] AllMusic's Mike DeGagne rated the album 4 out of 5, noting that "the brooding tones of synthesizer and oscillator along with Peter Hammill's distinct and overly ominous voice make it one of this British band's best efforts.