Having met at art school in 2003, Dan Workman and Dean Tzenos soon realized they had a musical kinship that simply had to be explored. With Tzenos on guitar and Workman providing unnervingly angelic vocals that can turn to a scream in an instant, the pair practiced with various drummers before breaking away and renting a townhouse in their hometown of Toronto with the goal to recording an album under the name Ten Kens. A year later, the duo emerged with a demo that caught the ear of FatCat Records, who snapped them up amidst a flurry of label interest. Fleshing out the lineup with Lee Stringle on bass, and finally settling for a drummer in Ryan Roantree, Ten Kens were set to transform their early recordings into what would be their debut, self-titled album.