the record is said to feature "themes and references" of and to "ritual, mythology, mundane and divergent belief, film, music, and resurrected motifs from preceding xiu xiu videos". it was also noted to be "imbued with the agitation, tension, sorrow and anger that has permeated the daily lives of so many over the last few years". the title is a reference to caravaggio's "boy with a basket of fruit", with the gender switch being crucial to the record: "when this title is a boy it is fey and lovely. when it is a girl is worrisome and rife with danger. male martyrs are almost always surrounded by nurses, their mothers, adoring angels and other loving disciples wrapping their crushed and holy bodies in strips of herb soaked cloth and weeping rapturously. female martyrs are almost always depicted having their skin flayed, breasts branded or ripped off with tongs or being stabbed and they are always, always alone save for her murderers. there is never anyone by their sides celebrating their spiritual life, only fiendishly reveling in their torture of her. it is perilous to be a 'girl.'"