Lyrical content

Mikey Heppner

Mikey Heppner

Mikey Heppner is best known as the singer and lead guitarist in the Canadian rock group Priestess. He formed the band after members of his punk band The Dropouts moved to New York to form The Stills. In late 2007, he performed as the guitarist of the experimental band Corpusse.-References:...

 stated that the band decided to integrate more progressive rock

Progressive rock

Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...

 influences into their songwriting, while the lyrical focus was more on "things [they] like," such as favorite movies. In fact, the album's title actually came from a line Heppner stumbled across while watching TV.

"Lady Killer" is a "tale of revenge against a serial killer," which started from the band trying to "write a theme song for Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

."

The song "Murphy's Law" was written about the film RoboCop

RoboCop

RoboCop is a 1987 American science fiction-action film directed by Paul Verhoeven. Set in a crime-ridden Detroit, Michigan in the near future, RoboCop centers on a police officer who is brutally murdered and subsequently re-created as a super-human cyborg known as "RoboCop"...

. Heppner has stated that RoboCop is his favorite movie.

The eight-minute "The Gem" was inspired by the concept of the human race being a plague upon the earth, and the apocalypse being a good thing because it wipes out humanity. Whoever sets it in motion (Heppner explained as by "open[ing] Pandora's box

Pandora's box

Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology, taken from the myth of Pandora's creation around line 60 of Hesiod's Works and Days. The "box" was actually a large jar given to Pandora , which contained all the evils of the world. When Pandora opened the jar, all its contents except for one item...

") is hailed as a hero for having done the right thing.

The song "Communicating Via-Eyes" is "about a guy who becomes a werewolf".

"Sideways Attack" features lyrics inspired by the Lone Wolf and Cub

Lone Wolf and Cub

is a manga created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Yorozuya Kinnosuke, and is widely recognized as an important and influential work.Lone Wolf and Cub...

 manga/movie series, while "It Baffles the Mind" is about a "Tenkaichi Budokai Tournament" in the Dragonball series.