In a fan club chat on March 18, 2006, Michael Romeo, the lead guitarist and writer, said that the album will be "a bit darker—the direction is still the same—for the most part," and went on to say that "the classical stuff was getting to a point were we need to evolve the music a bit. There is still a lot of classic influence in there—not as obvious as '[Out of the] Ashes', say." He went on to suggest that there may be a song or songs on the album themed around the works of H. P. Lovecraft, and that there would be "A BIG tune on here … Paradise Lost is the theme as of now," lending rumor to the title of the album.

In August 2006, some preliminary cover art was leaked on the internet, confirming suspicions that the title of the album would be the same as the epic song contained within. The album art originally leaked and categorized by the band as only "preliminary" artwork has been revealed to be the official artwork, with the full panorama (including the back cover) being made available on the official Symphony X website on May 12, 2007 here.

Similar to the tracks "The Accolade" from The Divine Wings of Tragedy and "Accolade II" from The Odyssey, the song "Revelation (Divus Pennae ex Tragoedia)" reuses a few melodies and styles from the song "The Divine Wings of Tragedy". To further indicate that these songs are related, "Divus Pennae ex Tragoedia" is Latin for "Divine Wings of Tragedy".

On May 25th the band performed their first live show since Gigantour in New York, where "Set the World on Fire" and "Domination" were played off the new album.