Frontman Gruff Rhys has said 'The Turning Tide' is "more serious" than the other tracks on Guerrilla. The song's lyrics are about living in, and embracing a time of change, an apt theme for the late 90s.
Rhys has described Guerrilla as "flippant, exciting, with an instant pop rush" and "one of our most ambitious records... if any of our records could've sold a lot, this is the one. I don't think the others have been proper pop albums, but I think Guerrilla could have been". Engaging and experimental in equal measures, it's a wildly eclectic record with a deliberate psychedelic pop flavour.
Guerrilla was released in June 1999, and peaked at number 10 in the UK Albums Chart. The aim was to create the SFA equivalent of a commercial-sounding 'pop' album; a "jukebox sort of album, where you listen to it and every song is different," according to Rhys, who said that the band felt they were waging a "sonic war" against average music and "the mainstream". The band chose carefully from 25 tracks to make an "immediate" sounding 45-minute-long album. The group chose the 'up' songs, the "digital songs with more of a constant rhythm" to make for a "brash and light-weight record... a disposable pop album that's too good to throw away". Some of the more guitar-orientated songs were dropped from the tracklisting at the last minute in favour of more electronic sounding tracks.
It was recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Box, Wiltshire, where the group were able to relax with their pets, and enjoy the 1998 FIFA World Cup.
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