In March and April, Last Night in Town was recorded with the Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz at Zing Studios in Westfield, Massachusetts.

With Aaron Ratajczak on bass guitar, the band signed with the independent label Goodfellow Records and released the EP The Burial Plot Bidding War in 2000.

[6] On March 21, the band began recording Last Night in Town with the producer Adam Dutkiewicz of Killswitch Engage.

said the album was "conceptually darker" than The Burial Plot Bidding War, and said it was "lyrically and artistically, laced with black-humour, technical excursions, metallic breaks, [and] intertwining and eclectic guitar work".

[11] Jason D. Taylor of AllMusic says the album showcases the band "careening from metalcore crunch to exhausting screamo and even meandering into slightly emotional melodic singing" to the likes of Glassjaw.

called the artwork "striking" and it said it showed the band "decked out Reservoir Dogs-style, beating the tar out of some poor jerk".

[15] The AllMusic reviewer Jason D. Taylor called the album "a cathartic, chaotic release", and continued, "The listener will go from being stunned to outright jaw-dropping incredulity."

He said that the record was very comparable to Drowningman in the regard that both bands are able to "flawlessly twist your mind into a pretzel and then straighten it back out with the occasional melody".

Taylor concluded his review by saying that the "reluctance to remove the album from your stereo is surely proof enough that this is one of the most potentially amazing bands inhabiting the metalcore scene".

He noted that the band "stray from choruses like they were acting out magnetism laws" and praised Buckley's "penetrating screams and joyously wild yells".

[20] Jim Smallman of TeamRock ranked Last Night in Town as his least favorite Every Time I Die album, calling it "A fine debut, but the band were to head on to better things.