A Coliseum Complex Museum

Writing and composition

The album features shorter compositions than those on the band's previous two studio albums, Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO (2013) and The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night (2010). Regarding this, vocalist and guitarist Jace Lasek noted: "This [album] pulls us back in; we were curious to see if it was still possible for us to make something and be happy with it if things were a little more compact and condensed. It worked and it was super fun doing it as well."

Critical reception

Writing for Exclaim!, Dave Mix was critical of the album's sameness, but called it "another impeccably crafted psychedelic rock record sure to please fans of the genre." In a mostly positive review for Pitchfork, Evan Rytlewski did, however, criticize the album for sounding too similar to its predecessors: "Coliseum stacks everything in the right place, and it’s all executed with the usual precision, so why doesn’t the album dazzle quite like the last few? Like the four albums before it, the Besnards self-recorded and self-produced this one at Breakglass, and more than its predecessors, it begs for an outside collaborator, somebody to shake up the band’s routine and perhaps lend some new tricks to their shrinking playbook."