Hippo Campus were sitting in the green room of a sold-out amphitheater show at the start of the Summer of 2023 when they realized they had a problem. Their fourth LP simply wasn’t good enough. Singer Jake Luppen had been listening to the band’s work as they rolled around the country, trying to tease out how much work remained. All of it, he soon decided. The soul wasn’t there, obfuscated by the need to sound sophisticated and the overwhelming ambition to make their best LP ever, a deeper and more profound record that reflected how their lives were changing.