Out of Season is largely a folk album with jazz leanings, with Gibbons and Webb drawing more directly on the influences of Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, and Nick Drake, at which Portishead's work in trip hop only hinted.

The first track of the album, "Mysteries", appears on the original soundtrack of the French movie Les Poupées Russes (The Russian Dolls), and in Wim Wenders' Palermo Shooting from 2008.

[13] "Tom the Model" was released as a single on March 3, 2003, and reached number 70 in the UK.

[14] A video for the song was directed by Chris Bran and it featured Gibbons performing in front of a theatre crowd.

The album was re-released in October 2019 on vinyl and entered the British charts at number 24.