Both drivers died, and several band and crew members received serious injuries; vocalist Jonathan Vigil sustained a fractured back, damaged ligaments, and two broken ankles, while drummer Andrew Tkaczyk spent ten days in a coma and had one of his legs amputated.

Music critics largely praised The Ghost Inside's technical skills within the metalcore genre, as well as the lyrical messages of hope and catharsis.

On the morning of November 19, 2015, the tour bus being used by metalcore band The Ghost Inside collided with a semi-trailer truck outside El Paso, Texas, while en route to a show in Phoenix, Arizona.

[6] Three days later, The Ghost Inside announced that touring guitarist Chris Davis, formerly of Texas in July, would be joining the band in a permanent capacity.

[9] The Ghost Inside held their first practice session since the accident on April 17, 2018, and shortly afterwards announced on Facebook that the band planned to return after recovery.

[16] Vigil told Josh Chesler of Spin the long hiatus between albums, coupled with the band's high-profile accident, meant "we knew we had to really deliver on this record.

[21] The production process began with two weeks of demo recordings at McKinnon's and Andrew Wade's studio, The Audio Compound, in Orlando, Florida, during May 2019.

Vigil explained that the original intent was to choose a title which accurately summarized the events the band members had gone through in the previous five years, but nothing they thought of was satisfactory.

The band chose "Aftermath", as the album's opening single because it "allows anyone that listens into our world, but it also lets us put final punctuation on that chapter of our lives".

[28] The music video for "Aftermath" opens with footage of the 2015 tour bus crash before showing Vigil performing at what appears to be the site of the accident, interspersed with images of Tkaczyk recovering from his injuries.

[39] James Christopher Monger of Allmusic said that it was "both invigorating and unsurprising when Vigil bellows 'TGI from the ashes, brought back to life' just seconds into the brief but punishing '1333'".

[37] Despite most of the album displaying the band's own brand of metalcore and hardcore, Monger also noted post-metal influence in "Unseen", which he praised as "a late-summer storm before unleashing a blackened torrent that evokes August Burns Red by way of Agalloch".

[37] Dannii Leivers of NME wrote; "we aren't here for a reinvention; we're here for a rebirth", and called The Ghost Inside "a towering statement of positivity" emerging from the band's hardship.

[38] The album was additionally considered a triumph of the metalcore genre; according to Sam Houlden of Punknews.org, "whereas most [metalcore] bands excel in one area, TGI have managed to raise all aspects of their game to an equally impressive level and the result is something endlessly listenable", drawing comparisons to Counterparts, Stray From the Path, Knocked Loose and McKinnon's band, A Day To Remember.

[17] Morawitz noted that while the band stayed true to their earlier roots as intended on "Pressure Point" and "Overexposure", tracks such as "Make or Break", "Begin Again" and "Aftermath" evidently drew from McKinnon's input and experience with A Day to Remember.