Soft Opening follows Posse's 2012 self-titled album and subsequent EP of Smog covers. Band members Sacha Maxim, Paul Wittmann-Todd, and Jon Salzman recorded the album over an extended period of time in their homemade studio, with little external assistance.

Soft Opening is not intended to be slick and is also not intentionally rough. It is meant to be a degraded reflection of Posse: their optimism, their hopelessness, their limitations, filtered through their abilities and interests.

These songs are blankets designed with soft colors and graceful edges, made to lay over pits of anger and disappointment. They leap from mercurial, spacious leads to malevolent cross-eyed solos. The rhythm guitar drifts and phases while the bass tiptoes atop the drums.