This was the last album to feature Marc Byrd as a member of the band, and the first time the Choir used crowdfunding to finance a new studio project.

Lead singer and guitarist Derri Daugherty and drummer and lyricist Steve Hindalong contributed audio engineering and percussion, respectively, to a number of projects during this time.

Daugherty, Hindalong and Chandler also contributed similar efforts to the 2013 album Job by singer/songwriter Rick Elias, which proved to be his final release before his death in 2019.

[8] Since saxophone and Lyricon player Dan Michaels had become a successful A&R man in the Christian music industry,[9] particularly with the band MercyMe while a senior vice president at Fair Trade Services,[10] he had financed the Choir's past three studio albums—Burning Like the Midnight Sun, de-plumed, The Loudest Sound Ever Heard—and also served as the band's manager.

[14][15] The Choir's successful 2013 Kickstarter campaign for Shadow Weaver proved to be instrumental in giving the band more time to record and mix the album, creating "a more complete sonic palette," according to Byrd.

[18] The additional funding allowed the band to bring back mixer Julian Kindred, who mixed the Choir's Grammy-nominated 2000 album Flap Your Wings.

"[19] The "thick" sound of the guitars on Shadow Weaver that both Daugherty and Byrd were determined to achieve was in large part due to Kindred's work.

"[19] As part of the Kickstarter effort, backers were able to pay for an opportunity to play on the album, and the band was initially uncertain about the quality of what would be recorded.

[21] Five backers contributed vocally or instrumentally to Shadow Weaver, including Thom Granger, former editor of CCM Magazine.

[27] The driving rock track "What You Think I Am," which Byrd claimed was many listeners' "favorite song on the album," represented to him what the Choir was as a band.

After hearing the "very metal" chord progression and the beat, Michaels was determined to create one, and worked on this contribution for hours at a time over several weeks in advance of recording.

It's my tenor sax, and it's doubled, and then through my Lyricon […] I've got these custom sounds that I got from this guy in Dayton, Ohio [who] programs, and one of them is this beautiful-sounding trombone.

[17] Hindalong implemented a custom-made drum kit with maple shells that Hammock used in their studio for years, and modified it to include two hi-hats.

"[29] According to Hindalong, his songwriting style tends to echo that of Neil Young, so two of his songs had to be musically reinvented to fit with the overall sonics of Shadow Weaver.

At the time, Daugherty was listening to To the Happy Few by Medicine "non-stop," and that album featured a track with "acoustic guitars that were all distorted with these really pretty harmony vocals," so he took the song in that direction.

"[31] The other song was "The Soul of Every Creature Cries Out," which felt out of place on the album even after the acoustic guitars, drums and bass were all recorded.

[21] However, the remaining songs addressed more universal themes, including the complexity of individuals ("What You Think I Am"),[34] the search for truth ("Everybody's Got a Guru," "The Soul of Every Creature Cries Out"),[35][30] the reality of human suffering ("We All Know"),[36] and post-coital euphoria ("Two Clouds Are One").

[36] At a high school marching band reunion Hindalong attended when on tour in Southern California, he reconnected with his first girlfriend, who mentioned she was going to bring blankets to a homeless family living out of their car; this inspired the lyrics to the first verse.

"[36] Hindalong was also inspired by the scene towards the end of the film Wings of Desire in which the angel Damiel is hit in the head and bleeds.

This imagery stayed with Hindalong for years, ultimately inspiring the lyrics in the chorus, "And you know you're alive / When you taste your own blood / Open hands to the sky / With your face in the mud.

"[36] This effort to write more universal themes was driven by Hindalong's respect for Daugherty's role in the band as lead vocalist.

"[39] As a result, "Good Morning, Shadow Weaver" and its ending reprise not only musically opened and closed the album, but its lyrics did as well.

In partnership with MXL Microphones, Marshall Electronics, and StreamVu TV, the event was held at Studio Instrument Rentals in Nashville, Tennessee, and the live concerts featured the entire band, along with Christy Byrd on background vocals and additional percussion.

[43] This concert would receive a physical release in 2016 in a CD/DVD combo as part of a stretch goal for the Circle Slide 25th Anniversary Kickstarter campaign.

Rice said "this impeccably written, melancholy storm of emotion and experience is a poster child for quality," while Gangl added that "it's a great effort, period—and one which proves, yet again, that the muse that rendered the band so singularly poignant when they first made their debut in the mid-1980s, shines just as brightly here in the present day, some thirty years later.

"[50] Shawn McLaughlin of Christian Musician also agreed, calling Shadow Weaver "music that is as vital, challenging and purposefully artful as anything out there, today," and added that the band is "seemingly […] just starting to reach their creative apex.

"[48] Apple Music's editorial review was similarly effusive, claiming that Derri Daugherty's "angelic lead vocals are at once otherworldly and deeply human.

"[51] While The Phantom Tollbooth awarded the band four out of five stars for the album, writer Derek Walker was a bit more critical, saying that "while some tracks show a new lease of energy, others ("Rhythm of the Road") tend towards filler.

"[55] Joshua Lory at Down the Line praised the album’s "darker musical vibe" and "big spacey soundscapes," comparing Shadow Weaver favorably to the band’s 1988 release Chase the Kangaroo and even the Cure’s Disintegration.

[56] Echoing that sentiment, John Thompson of True Tunes said of the Choir, "if you loved them in the '80s or '90s and have lost track, let this record be your re-introduction.