Walker, Steer, and Amott reformed in 2007 with Arch Enemy drummer Daniel Erlandsson as a live act and performed at festivals around the world for the next several years.

[5] Amott and Erlandsson left the band in 2012 to focus on Arch Enemy, and Steer and Walker recruited Wilding to record Surgical Steel, which they financed independently as they had no label backing at the time.

[5] The German magazine Legacy premiered the Surgical Steel song "Captive Bolt Pistol" in June 2013 on a sampler CD, titled Hell Is Here, promoting the 2013 Party.San Open Air festival.

[12] The band recorded four additional songs during the Surgical Steel sessions that were not included on the standard edition of the album: "A Wraith in the Apparatus", "Intensive Battery Brooding", "Zochrot", and "Livestock Marketplace".

[22] Mike Kemp of Terrorizer opined that the record wasn't a reinvention of the band's familiar sound, nor "a rehash of past glories".

He also praised the musicians on the album, such as the "outstanding playing from Steer", "some of the tightest drumming in the band's discography", and called Walker "the star of the record".