Musically, the album contains elements of rock, pop, blues, folk, and electronica, with songs that range from synthesised percussion rhythms to crooning 1950s style balladry.

To promote the album, the band played a free show at retail outlet Fopp Records, in London, on the day of the UK release.

[8][9] At this demoing location, attempts to tune into radio stations to capture a regular signal generated unstable and erratic reception – referred to as 'radio wars' by the band.

[9][10] In 2007, Howling Bells departed from Bella Union, the UK record label that had released their eponymous debut album.

[3] In January 2008, Howling Bells brokered a deal with, Independiente, since the record label's main focus was for music rather than money.

[16] Producer and mixer, Dan Grech-Marguerat, who had previously worked with Howling Bells' manager, had listened to demos of the new tracks.

In January 2008, Howling Bells recorded more tracks for Radio Wars, now working at The Sound Factory, in Los Angeles.

After the band returned from Los Angeles, they recorded "It Ain't You", "Let's Be Kids", and "Digital Hearts" at AIR Studios in London.

[29][30] In 2010, "Cities Burning Down", was one of over 100 tracks by various artists that appeared on the Realtime Worlds developed multiplayer online video game, APB: All Points Bulletin.

[14] Howling Bells wanted a luminous front cover art that represented each individual to signify that the album was a brighter, colourful, more vibrant compendium, as well as a more collaborative songwriting effort with a greater input among the four members.

[19] By contrast the debut album's artwork has front and back covers that are grey-washed, appropriate to the gloomier, more languishing material mostly written by Juanita.

[36] In December 2011, Perez Hilton proclaimed on his website that Hot Chelle Rae copied the cover art of Radio Wars for its second album, Whatever.

[54][55] In May and June, they joined Pete Yorn as well as Snow Patrol, to support Coldplay for the third leg of the North American Viva la Vida Tour.

[57][58] It was presented as a digipak that included a bonus live disc containing seven tracks of a Howling Bells performance recorded at The Paradiso, in Amsterdam, in November 2008.

[nb 1] The band played a free instore show at retail outlet Fopp Records, in Covent Garden, on the day of the UK release.

[38] Album of the Year is a website that applies the same system of standardised scoring, this time using a fixed number of twelve mainstream publications as sources.

Radio Wars obtained an average score of 60/100 based on five reviews for a final ranking of 268 out of 323 potential candidates for, "Album of the Year".

[66] Positive reviews came from Andrew Leahey of Allmusic, who applauded the inclusion of string and brass instruments, and referred to the album as, "truthfully hard to resist.

"[70] Less favourable reviews came from Darren Harvey of musicOMH, who called it: "unremarkable and disposable as a Domino's pizza box," and compared it to US college radio of the mid-1990s.

He also added: "Lyrics that James Blunt would turn up his piggy little nose at [...] a mangling of the present participle that would make Conor Oberst choke on his granola.

"[71] Andrew Winistorfer of Prefix Magazine: "a milquetoast selection of mid-tempo stadium anthems," though he found some positivity in "Golden Web", and claimed that the high point of the album was the soaring chorus of "Digital Hearts".

"[72] Corban Goble of Adequacy, had good things to say about the instrumentation and commented that the record had a great feel, though he felt that the album was missing any kind of strong hook or melody, and that the band lacked passion.