Written and recorded over the span of 16 months with producer John Goodmanson,[1] the album marked a substantial departure from the lo-fi sound of the band's debut, Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?

The album was preceded by the release of two singles: "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo", which reached number 27 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, and "Authenticity".

Despite its commercial failure, King James Version gradually attained a cult following and critical acclaim in the years following its release, and was later named one of the best albums of the 2000s by PopMatters.

was reissued by Slash/London the following month to great commercial success, largely due to "Flagpole Sitta";[5] the album went on to sell over 500,000 copies in the United States, and in February 1999 was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The band intended to distance themselves from "Flagpole Sitta", which they thought had marked them as a one-hit wonder and a "major label fabrication" because of its ironic lyrics, which frontman Sean Nelson believed listeners had taken at "face value".

[15][16][non-primary source needed] Harvey Danger had hoped to release King James Version in August or September 1999, but owing to a series of corporate mergers and restructurings, the album was indefinitely delayed.

[13] During what Nelson described as the album's "second gestation period",[2] parts of King James Version were revised, and three new songs—"Meetings With Remarkable Men (Show Me the Hero)", "Humility on Parade" and "Loyalty Bldg.

[2][20][non-primary source needed] Recording was completed in late February 2000,[21] and in June 2000, the band re-mixed/mixed the majority of the album's tracks at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, B.C.

[26] In contrast to the band's debut album, King James Version features a less grungy and lo-fi sound,[23] and uses a wider variety of instruments, including keyboards, piano and pump organ.

[27] Guitarist Jeff J. Lin, a classically trained musician, composed cello and viola arrangements for the album, which were played by members of the Seattle Symphony.

[29][30][31][non-primary source needed] "Pike St./Park Slope" is a sombre piano ballad and was compared to the works of Ben Folds[26][32][33] and John Lennon's "Imagine".

[2][non-primary source needed] The overall atmosphere and direction of King James Version was, in part, informed by the English rock band Radiohead and their 1997 album OK Computer.

[14] After hearing about the album's success, which Nelson described as the "ultimate one-hit wonder redemption narrative", Harvey Danger decided to experiment with their sound and make a "great leap forward, artistically, and do something really ambitious" in order to maintain their credibility.

The heavily philosophical and ambiguous lyrics on King James Version, written by Sean Nelson, primarily discuss "the conflict between faith and skepticism".

Various popular figures and musicians, such as Jesus, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanael West, the Malboro Man and Morrissey are mentioned on the album's tracks.

[36] The referential nature of King James Version's lyrics was inspired by the works of Frederic Tuten, an American novelist known for his style of referencing to the past via the present.

[27] To further connect with the album's recurring theme of referencing other musicians and people, King James Version features an array of backup vocalists, including Grant Lee Buffalo's Grant-Lee Phillips and Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard, in order to "reflect many, many voices".

[12] Nelson deliberately avoided writing about Harvey Danger's struggles with success, believing the subject to be "stupid and irrelevant to most people that listen to music".

[2][non-primary source needed] The album's artwork, done by Tae Won Yu, was described by Nelson as an expression of the "band's fractured mental and psychic state, or relationship to ourselves, our city, our project, and each other.

[21][non-primary source needed] On July 6, 2000, Harvey Danger announced on their website that King James Version had been fully sequenced, mastered and approved by London-Sire, and unveiled the new album's title and release date.

[38] Prior to the album's release, Harvey Danger expanded into a sextet with the introduction of guitarist Mike Squires and keyboard player John Roderick, in an effort to improve the quality of the band's live performances.

[citation needed] Nelson attempted to get King James Version (including its B-sides) released on vinyl through Barsuk Records, of which he was a partner, but those plans fell through due to legal issues surrounding licensing.

[3] London-Sire promoted King James Version with the release of one single, "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo", which was serviced to radio stations on August 7, 2000.

MTV responded to the band's complaints by claiming that the video for "Sad Sweetheart of the Rodeo" had received poor test screenings, and it was pulled from rotation.

[38][49] Harvey Danger initially embarked on a national tour across the United States and Canada throughout the first half of September 2000 in support of King James Version.

"[3][58] After disbanding, the band's members pursued a number of musical and non-musical endeavours, with Nelson becoming a movie critic for the Seattle bi-weekly newspaper The Stranger and a business partner at Barsuk Records.

[49][61] In the absence of commercial success, King James Version attained a cult following;[58] while working on their own separate musical projects, people would approach Sult and Nelson to tell them of their admiration of the album.

's Michael Edwards and Cokemachineglow's Christopher Alexander both compared the album with Weezer's Pinkerton (1996), another sophomore effort which performed poorly upon release but later attracted acclaim.

[68] Harvey Danger performed King James Version in its entirety on March 7, 2008, at The Triple Door in Seattle as part of a set of concerts commemorating the 10th anniversary of Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone?.