A lot of things happened to the Go! Team between their two Toronto shows, mere months apart in 2005. They lost a member, gained another member, navigated through a major label bidding war and finally signed with Universal, and released their debut album in the States after a lengthy sample clearing process. All this corresponded with a massive boost in profile, such that the diminutive Lee’s Palace could no longer hold the band, and so they were shifted across town to the Phoenix.

Something else happened on the way across town: the Go! Team forgot how to impress. Part of the problem was probably integrating their new member into the lineup; Silke Steidinger filled multiple roles in the Go! Team’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink cartoon factory sound, and so Kaori Tsuchida probably had some learning to do while on the road. Another problem was playing the revamped songs; while Universal made an attempt to keep the album’s songs relatively intact, there were some samples that just couldn’t be cleared for the international release. The band adjusted to fit the new sound, but shoehorning Ninja and Tsuchida’s vocals into places where they didn’t really belong wasn’t an ideal solution. And I guess the band shouldn’t take all the blame for a poor second performance; the Phoenix is not the greatest venue, the all-ages venue split that put the kids at the front and the drinkers at the back was a bad plan, and the crowd was far less interested in dancing than the terrific Lee’s Palace crowd.

So what happens when you calculate for their presence from the get go? The first hint is the new single from the as-yet-untitled new album, due for a fall release. Unlike many of the songs off the band’s Australian tour EP, Ninja’s vocals are mixed relatively low in the mix, meaning the signature klaxons-and-sirens sound still dominates like it should. In fact, head knob twiddler Ian Parton seems to have done his level best to turn Ninja’s vocals into as close an approximation of Thunder, Lightning, Strike’s cheerleader chorus samples as is possible while still retaining some of her innate personality. The rest of the song is still pretty by-the-numbers Go! Team—lots of urgent guitar wails and cheesy handclaps, with wallpapering lifted straight from a 70s car chase. If this is an indication of things to come, then the Go! Team have handled the growing pains rather well after all.