The album's title refers to the 'parallax error' phenomenon often found in cheap cameras, in which the viewfinder and the lens are aligned differently, resulting in images that are slightly lower in frame than what the photographer perceives.

Jacobs noted that the album makes less use of traditional musical instruments than his previous releases, and aimed for a purely synthetic sound, "though you'll hear the odd cello on this LP".

The opening track "Gum Chimes" is a baroque pop-inspired song built around a "bouncy" harpsichord sequence, featuring a trumpet Jacobs had bought for £15 during the recording of his debut album.

[4] "Will Get Fooled Again" was picked as the album's lead single, and deals lyrically with Jacobs' experiences with online dating, making reference to social networking sites MySpace and Friendster.

[4] Jacobs singled out the track "The Entertainment" as a "good example of my obsession with trying to make unpredictable music", and was an attempt at creating a mini-LP in one song, stating that he "would probably have said 'no, that's not done yet' several times" during its creation.

The song took nine months to record, and its extensive production proved too much for the Amiga's memory drive, so Jacobs had to save it on two floppy disks and stitch both parts together manually.

[4] On 29 September 2008, the first single from the album titled "Will Get Fooled Again" was released on 7" vinyl, featuring a cover version of "So Long, Farewell" as its B-side, and as a digital download.

[14] Simon Price of The Independent was equally enthusiastic, stating that "Parallax Error Beheads You sounds like a previously unimaginable hybrid of Steely Dan and Scritti Politti, or a compendium of 1970s kids' TV themes gone berserk, except with a modern vocabulary of eBay, iPods and Myspace.