It’s been a tumultuous year for Toronto-based, East-coast born alt-Pop band The Danger Bees. The group’s last real show (not counting a pared-down version of the group that played at Canadian Music Week in March) was on January 11 of this year.

The hiatus since then is basically due to the fact that one of the main group members, guitarist Ed Bernard, had announced he was leaving the hive after that show. As our story about it at the time explained, the timing was odd since the group had just released a powerful and very well received new album, Wyatt, and was gathering acclaim from press across the country.

The group’s frontman/lead singer, keyboardist and principal songwriter, David Macmichael, has certainly stayed busy since then, appearing twice-weekly at Relish in East York (Friday nights solo or with friends and Sundays co-hosting the club’s weekly jam night) and gearing up to start a new open mic at a pub in the area beginning October 9.

But he definitely never abandoned the idea of the Bees, and in fact has apparently taken the time to completely reinvent the group’s roster.

While Bernard and the other previous members of the Bees.1 incarnation are still listed as members on the group’s Facebook page and the website’s domain has apparently expired, he has just told me that the new group contains only one previous member aside from himself: Josh Gillard, the rhythm guitarist and backup vocalist who helped him start the band back when they both lived in Nova Scotia.

The new members are Matt Leitch on lead guitar, Ryan Snyder on bass and Sean Habermehl on drums.

Tonight you can find out whether the group is better than the old or sucks honeycombs, as the Bees take the stage at 10:35 at the Horseshoe Tavern, 370 Queen St. W., for a full set as part of a five-group showcase revolving around an ep release for the band Another City.