In marriage or band membership, often times it's what is not said that speaks most about a divorce. Such is the case with a very amicable Canadian rock band.

Barenaked Ladies is in Houston for the first time Wednesday night as a quartet, playing the Verizon Wireless Theater.

In February of last year it was announced that guitarist/singer-songwriter Steven Page — arguably the most well-known member of Barenaked Ladies (BNL) and the voice behind past hit singles "One Week" and "It's All Been Done," — was leaving the band by mutual agreement. Both Page and the band made the announcement at the same time and niceties like "for 20 years the relationship has been fruitful" and "All agree it's time to move on" were volleyed about with great diplomacy.

The finest of spin doctors couldn't have produced a more professional and less dramatic separation between lifelong band brothers.

With time and more space to talk, however, some of the latent, simmering frustration that must have been building behind the scenes started to seep to the surface in fragments. Put all the pieces together and a second picture starts to unfold.

In retrospect, one of the first red flags was waved a year before Page left the band. After eight albums and 15 years of rock that saw BNL play its way out of Ontario, Canada and onto an international stage with well over 10 million albums sold, the band decided to briefly abandon lucrative rock radio to make the children's album, Snacktime!

Apparently Page was not completely on board with this project.

"...It wasn't my idea. I was along for the ride," Page was quoted as saying to the Ottawa Citizen last year about Snacktime! (although, curiously, he is credited with writing one-third of the tracks). A drug arrest two months after the album's release probably did nothing to help endear Page to his bandmates or the kiddies and parents who might be buying the album.

Other bombs started to burst after the split as it appeared Page thought — very incorrectly — that his departure might signal the end of Barenaked Ladies all-together. Apparently the remaining members — guitarist/vocalist Ed Robertson, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Kevin Hearn, bassist Jim Creeggan and drummer Tyler Stewart — had a different plans that included the creation of the just released first post-Page BNL album, All In Good Time.

Earlier this year Page told the Toronto Star that he thought it was weird that the band didn't change its name when he left and that they continue to perform songs that he wrote. He went on to say that he has no plans to rejoin the band in the future.

Even now, with BNL in Houston, the remaining band members mixed feelings toward Page can be heard both in what is said ... and what isn't.

"The changes were necessary which is difficult to admit," Hearn tells CultureMap. "But a lot of the feedback we've been getting after concert is that this is the best we've ever sounded live."

The multi-faceted BNL does have one advantage over bands that depend solely on one member for lead vocals. With the exception of drummer Stewart, all the other members of the band write and sing songs on every album. With Page gone, it was simply a matter of reinventing the songwriting formula and redistributing the duties among the remaining members for the making of All In Good Time.

"I'm working a lot harder now," says Hearn who wrote three songs for the album. "I feel more present. Physically on stage, Steve used to stand in front of me. Now I'm front and center."

Hearn has some new duties, but it's Robertson who has been asked to truly take center stage in place of Page, both as a songwriter and a singer. In addition to writing over half of All In Good Time, including the first two singles, "You Run Away"and "Every Subway Car," he's also taken over the vocals on many past favorites and hit singles.

"If Chris Martin left Coldplay it might be difficult for them to carry on," Hearn says. "But for (BNL), we all had a voice and have all worked very hard on this over the years to carry on.

"Bottom line is we're having fun again."

That "again" being the key as to why BNL is now a quarter, not a quintet.