The group's lyrics are noted for their horror themes and heavily allude to works of classic writers/filmmakers of the genre, such as H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, George A. Romero and John Carpenter, among others.

It is a concept album loosely based on the writings of Romantic poets such as Edgar Allan Poe, Heinrich Heine and Lord Byron (its opening track, "A Curse of the Grandest Kind", takes its lyrics from an excerpt of Byron's 1817 dramatic poem Manfred, while "Descend into Maelstrom" references in its lyrics and title Poe's short story "A Descent into the Maelström"), and also of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.

A stop motion music video for the track "The Wood Hag", directed and animated by Fursy Teyssier, was uploaded on Prophecy's official YouTube channel as a teaser on 4 September.

[2] On 31 October 2015, The Vision Bleak announced that they would begin a tour around Europe, accompanied by John Haughm of Agalloch and Danish death-doom band Saturnus, to promote their sixth album, The Unknown, which was released on 3 June 2016.

As a means to celebrate their 16th anniversary, and to introduce newcomers to their music, the band also released a compilation album entitled Timeline: An Introduction to The Vision Bleak as a companion to The Unknown.