"My Beautiful Friend" appeared as the second single from the album in December 1999; in early 2000, the Charlatans toured the United States with Stereophonics.

Nearing the end of the process, the Charlatans had signed a deal with MCA Records and its parent company Universal Music Group for £1 million, though they remained with Beggars Banquet for the UK.

[10] As construction was underway, Burgess returned to Los Angeles to spend time with his girlfriend Michelle for seven weeks across the end of the year and the start of 1999.

He spent time listening to various Chess Records that MCA had sent the band, by the likes of Chuck Berry, John Lee Hooker, and Howlin' Wolf.

[13] On the same day the band christened their studio Big Mushroom, they learned that their accountant, Trevor Williams, had stolen £300,000 from their funds, which should have been used for taxes dating back five years.

[13] Sessions were held at Big Mushroom in Middlewich, Cheshire, and at Great Linford Manor in Buckinghamshire, with the band self-producing and James Spencer recording the proceedings.

[30][31] Dave Kendall of MTV theorised that the title referred to the band's "status as sole survivors of the original Madchester mob they were lumped in with".

[32] Steve Taylor, in his book The A to X of Alternative Music (2006), said it was full of "personal songs that are shot through with a sense of resolve in the face of adversity and tragedy, with angels and witches [as] a recurring motif".

[33] Kendall said "Impossible" set the standard for the remainder of the album of "impeccably arranged '60s pop songs rich in pedigree and bankrupt in R&D.

Burgess made an early version of the song with his eight-track recorder; he played it for the Chemical Brothers, who proceeded to alter the instrumentation, bringing it closer to what would eventually appear on the album.

[33][26] The melancholic and harmonica-centred "Senses (Angel on My Shoulder)" was compared to the work of Nick Cave, which Burgess said dealt with people he knew and had admiration for.

[46] The beat in "My Beautiful Friend" was influenced by "My Lovin' Is Digi" (1998) by RZA; Burgess said it talked about "saying goodbye to something and welcoming something new", highlighting Collins' death, the arrival of Rogers, and moving to the US.

[50][51] "The Blind Stagger" consists of wind instruments, only interrupted by a guitar solo; when recording the songs, they synched up four bass drums to achieve a particular tone.

[54][55] The hidden track "Tony's Bar & Grill" came from a jam between Blunt and Rogers; Spencer said Brookes was "going to do some human beatboxing, but just burst into hysterics!

[58][59] They were due to play a one-off show at the Glasgow Green the following month, with support from Beth Orton and Cast, but the event was cancelled when they were unable to acquire a licence for it.

[66] In March and April 2000, the band went on a two-week tour of North America with Stereophonics; a week prior to the beginning of the trek, the Charlatans had filmed a music video for "Impossible".

[76][77] In 2011, Universal UMC and Island Records released a two-disc edition of the album, which included B-sides, radio sessions, and remixes.

Erlewine felt that it was "merely a step below their previous high point of Tellin' Stories", complimenting that each of the tracks "works its charms with subtle grace and considerable muscle".

[27] NME writer Sylvia Patterson found it to be the "sound of a band completing their long-promised mission to obliterate, forever, their indie status by entering the widescreen wonderland of eternal Rock'n'Roll Class".

[33] Graff said that in addition to the exploration of American music styles on the album, the band had "flavor[ed] it with enough British pop sensibility to make it more than simply sifting through the past".

"[90] Hendrickson said that while it was not as "instantly catchy" as their prior releases, it was the "slow-burning work of five men who have injected new life into their sound", cementing the group as "one of the most consistent English bands of the last ten years".

[29] Consumable Online writer Chris Hill and CMJ New Music Monthly's Jonathan Perry expressed a similar sentiment, with the latter saying that after the previous "string of mediocre efforts", Us and Us Only "sounds remarkably vital".

[91][92] Kendall called the band "quintessential pop craftsmen," as the tracks they offered were "flawless: effortlessly effective key changes and chord progressions".

"[95] Drowned in Sound's Dom Gourlay wrote that "few could argue that Us And Us Only represents possibly the last record created by The Charlatans that could boast a fluent level of consistency from start to finish".

[23] BBC Music reviewer Ian Wade echoed a similar statement, saying it was "probably the last great, brilliant and fully consistent Charlatans album.

[5][102] Author Richard Luck, in his book The Madchester Scene (2002), said that after Tellin' Stories, he thought that the follow-up would not be as successful, "and, sure enough, Us & Us Only failed to set the pop world on fire".

Though he was satisfied with the promotion that Universal had provided, he went on to compare the album to John Wesley Harding (1967) by Dylan: "detached and a step sideways.