The band wrote most of the album together. Three songs, however, were written solely by Thomen for the next Blind Guardian album: "Evil Eyes", "It – The Gathering", and the ballad "Beyond Reality".[6] Thomen comments:
Three songs I wrote for Blind Guardian. And when I noticed, when they were done, that the songs were very similar to old Blind Guardian stuff, more back-to-the-roots, I noticed that it would be big problem to present these songs to my ex-band members, because, OK, then I was still in the band, but I knew when I would play the songs to them they would say: "Hey, this is something we already did ten years ago."[6]
The Japanese bonus track "Ça plane pour moi" is sung in French, however Jens does not speak the language. Emil knows some French, and he wrote down the lyrics at home in Umeå and told Jens how to pronounce it.[7]