On September 9, 2019, the band confirmed that they had started work on their ninth album. They later announced during the January 2020 UK/EU tour supporting
While She Sleeps, that the recording process of the album would start once they returned to the US. The band completed recording before the
COVID-19 pandemic escalated in the United States in early 2020, leading them to hold off on releasing the album until they were able to tour in support of it. Vocalist
Keith Buckley explained in a recent interview, "I dared myself to make some drastic changes in my life. During the pandemic, everything just came to a head. The thing is, we were already done writing and recording the record. The pandemic didn’t actually influence the record at all, but it did influence the way that the record lives. Songs like “Post-Boredom” came to have a new meaning after the pandemic. Songs like “Dark Distance” look a little strange now in hindsight, considering it was written before the pandemic, asking for a plague to happen." On December 8, 2020, the band released two new songs called "A Colossal Wreck" and "Desperate Pleasures" in the lead-up to their live stream event which took place on December 19, 2020 instead of their annual
Tid the Season show. A third track, "AWOL" was released on February 1, 2021. On August 17, 2021, the band released the song "Post-Boredom" as a single for their album
Radical, which they also announced that day. The band also did a pop-up show in Buffalo on August 26, as well as a show for
the Ghost Inside's east coast return show on August 28, where they debuted "Post-Boredom". Two more singles were released in advance, closer to the album's release date; "Planet Shit" on September 13, 2021 and "Thing with Feathers", via music video on the album's release date, October 22, 2021. The latter song features
Andy Hull of
Manchester Orchestra, and it was written in memory of the Buckley brothers' sister Jaclyn, who lived with
Rett syndrome and died from it in early 2017. Since then, Keith has encouraged disabled attendees of the band's shows to tag him personally. As with
Low Teens, the album was again produced by
Will Putney, guitarist of
Fit for an Autopsy, known for his production work with
the Acacia Strain,
Body Count, and
The Amity Affliction. ==Touring cancellation and band's split==