After their formation, the group performed several debut gigs before they entered the studio to record their first album featuring all original material written by guitarist John McLaughlin.

[10] Reviewing the album for JazzTimes in 1998, Bill Milkowski said: One is struck by the grandiose reach of the quintet that dared to call itself an orchestra.

But it was numbers like "Noonward Race", "Vital Transformation" and especially "Awakening", fueled by Cobham’s smoldering intensity on the kit and McLaughlin’s raging, distortion-soaked guitar lines, that really grabbed rock crowds.

[10] In a retrospective review for Allmusic, Richard S. Ginell wrote that The Inner Mounting Flame "is the album that made John McLaughlin a semi-household name, a furious, high-energy, yet rigorously conceived meeting of virtuosos that, for all intents and purposes, defined the fusion of jazz and rock a year after Miles Davis' Bitches Brew breakthrough".

It features a facsimile of the LP front cover, a new set of liner notes by Bob Belden, and many photographs of the band.