After experiencing such incredible success with her first album, SOAK felt burdened by the weight of expectation while working on her second album, Grim Town. "When I stopped touring and started doing the new record, I was devastated by doubt and pressure," she told Vice during a January 2019 interview. "I found it really hard to work under the knowledge that people were expecting something. I think I spent those years of touring in a bubble and avoiding my personal life, so when I got home I ended up massively depressed."
Of course, she was eventually able to channel all that stress and pressure into her album. "I was in a pit of self-doubt in terms of how I worked creatively," she later added. "I didn't trust my own ideas. I'd make one note and then be like, 'No, actually I hate music!' I was feeling really negative, and the album was born out of how I felt at that time. I wanted to make my brain a location because it felt easier to process everything that was going on in that way."