Denizen is made of various world travelers who met in an unlikely place at an uncertain time. In the city of Daegu, South Korea, Michael John McFarlane, along with a group of other Western expatriates, formed Denizen in the fall of 2011. The initial sound of the album had often been compared to The Pixies, The Beatles, and Tom Petty. As life overseas drew people away from Korea, McFarlane continued the band and transformed it into his own songwriting vehicle with numerous drummers, bassists, and guitar players filling in the various roles for various periods of time. Early in the band's career, McFarlane found himself in the producer role for the band's first set of recordings, which eventually became their first LP, Horus Chorus. Immediately upon finishing the album, McFarlane set out to produce a darker, more cohesive rock album that would clarify the band's genre as a more powerful, beat-driven, rock band often compared to Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Queen, David Bowie, and The Beatles. Players came and went, but Denizen ultimately scored with the lineup of Ireland's Ivan Cooper on drums, South Africa's Chretien Token Le Keur on Bass, and Korea's own Choi Joung Woo on lead guitar. At this point, the band gain rapid popularity and notoriety as they toured Korea, gigging at large festivals and winning various band competitions. This final string of success was short-lived as the expatriate life finally drew the members to their various corners of the globe, the second EP still unfinished. While back in America, McFarlane found a engineer Morning Estrada to help mix the existing recordings for Decade Lost. Finding many of the prior recordings from Korea inadequate, the team re-recorded most of the album guitars and vocals as drummer Ivan Cooper, from his home studio in Ireland, re-tracked the drums and sent the files to the US. Finally, only weeks before McFarlane set out for his next life overseas, Denizen's second album Decade Lost was completed.