"March of Ghosts" is the band's follow-up to Missa Atropos, which was released on Kscope in 2011 along with the live album, London. London was recorded on the band's recent European tour and the success of this tour helped provide the genesis for March of Ghosts, as Jon-Arne explains: 'the previous tour gave us lots of inspiration. So, the week after returning we went straight into the studio to capture whatever came. As a result, the majority of the album was written in a day writing orgy where the band got together and jammed for a full day and night… “March of Ghosts” was surprisingly easy to write.' 　　 　　Such was the success of these early sessions that a lot of the material that can be heard on the final album comes from this original jam session. This material was then honed, dissected and refined throughout the summer and autumn of 2011 to create a coherent whole. 　　 　　While Missa Atropos can be viewed as a concept album, following the story of one person leaving everything behind, Thomas sees March of Ghosts is much more as a collection of short tales; 'The idea was to have the lead character spend a night where all these ghosts (dead and alive) would march past him to tell their stories.' 　　 　　Characters include Haitian war criminals, the crew of the Marie Celeste, a returning American WWI soldier who finds himself in 2012 and the ghost of an English comedy writer who was wrongly accused of treason and who will sit for eternity listening to gramophone recordings of the broadcasts he did on enemy radio. As lead singer Jan-Henrik explains, 'They are short stories. They are a march of ghosts. They are tales that need to be told.'