Neonism

On the sound of the album, band member Cornelius said, "The hard will be harder, the passion will be more passionate, the ecstatic more ecstatic."[2] The band wanted to utilise a "true black metal production" sound, having it recorded at Sunlight Studios (home to many reputed black metal acts in the mid 90s).

The album expands upon their debut The Linear Scaffold by bringing a concept to the unique sound. It is in theory a black metal album, but contains many sonic elements and themes the genre usually does not touch on.[1] The vocals by Cornelius and Lazare are different on this album than the first; though Lazare retains his clean singing and Cornelius continues his black metal screams/growls, some are delivered in a rap-like cadence and one song, "Omnipolis", is sung in French. Some songs feature keyboards and electronic sounds unlike those typically used in other black metal songs. Indeed, the album was so far from traditional black metal, the band received a death threat.[4]

Although there is some thematic continuity between songs, the album is not as strictly a concept album as some of the band's later works. The lyrics to the album focus on consumerism and pop culture, which is a departure from many metal lyrics. American and European consumption seem to be targeted, as there are countless references to many brands and consumer icons throughout the record, including Naomi Campbell, The Marlboro Man, Coco Chanel, Calvin Klein, Disneyland, Prozac, Tom Cruise, Special Agent Dale Cooper, James Bond, Jurassic Park, VISA Cards, McDonald's and Michael Jordan. There are also references to philosophers and thinkers such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Plato, Friedrich Nietzsche and Niccolò Machiavelli, as well as references to various religious allusions, such as Gaia, Noah, Sodoma, "Satanistan", etc.[1]