It is Lucassen's first solo album since 1993's Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy, released 18 years earlier under the name Anthony, before he reached fame with his progressive metal/rock opera project Ayreon.

Lucassen wrote all the songs, sings lead vocals and performs most instruments himself, including all guitars, bass and keyboards.

The listener follows Mr. L's emotional journey as he is confronted with both serious and comical aspects of the "New Real", and desperately tries to decide if he can find a meaningful place within it.

In the booklet, "Our Imperfect Race" explains that "In their ongoing search for extraterrestrial intelligence, SETI finally has detected a signal that could be some sort of binary code.

This is a reference to 01011001, where The Forever, a fictional race featured in several Ayreon albums, sends a distress signal under the form of a binary code.

[1] Mir Fantastiki magazine rated Lost in the New Real 10 out of 10, calling it "a masterpiece of conceptualism" and "anthem to the classics of rock", and later awarded it as the Best sci-fi/fantasy concept album of 2012.