Frontman Britt Daniel explained that the band members were "all a little burned out", and that he personally needed "something that was going to reinvigorate me, to excite me about working on new stuff again.

[6] The band first met to record with Joe Chiccarelli in September 2013 with very little material written, opting to take some time to explore different songwriting approaches together.

[9] The following week, Britt Daniel and Jim Eno announced the album's title and release date in an interview with NPR Music.

"[2] Rolling Stone's Jon Dolan described the album as "an immediate grabber on par with the group's best work to date," praising its "rich, luminous sound" and "broad musical palette".

[15] Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times felt that much of the album's success could be attributed to "a tension between experimentation and allegiance to form", an aspect highlighted by Chiccarelli and Fridmann's production work.

concluded in his eight out of ten review: "Following the longest between-album wait of their career, They Want My Soul is a bold and swaggering declaration that Spoon have undoubtedly still got it — in spades.

In a seven out of ten star review, Billy Hamilton wrote for Under the Radar that "Despite the band's four-year vacation, They Want My Soul doesn't tread much fresh ground.