Kittie is back on the road, invigorated and ready to move forward following a draining battle with its former record label.

The all-female Canadian metal band led by sisters Morgan and Mercedes Lander spent the past year at home after Artemis Records released the group from its contract.

"There's so much energy left in this band," singer-guitarist Morgan Lander said by phone from a recent tour stop in Bakersfield, Calif.

Kittie sued Artemis in 2003, claiming that the label owed nearly $1 million in royalties and had not properly marketed or financially supported the band. The suit was settled out of court the following year, but nothing changed in the relationship. Artemis let Kittie out of its contract in March 2005.

"It definitely was not a very happy time," said Lander, 24.

Kittie, which performs Sunday at the Knitting Factory in Manhattan, is supporting "Never Again," an Internet-only EP released in February. The band has yet to find a label for its next album.

The decision to go digital was more about timing than a rejection of the CD format, Lander said. She said Kittie wanted to tour with new material -- the band's last album was released in summer 2004 -- but did not want to wait the months it would have taken to package and distribute the EP in the traditional manner.

"It really was just the ability to release something to the fans a little more quickly, to reintroduce the band," Lander said. "We just wanted to let our fans know that we're still writing, still kicking ass and not on Artemis."

The tour marks the debut of guitarist Tara McLeod and bassist Trish Doan, who replaced Lisa Marx and Jennifer Arroyo, respectively. Mercedes Lander is the band's drummer.

"They are both really sweet, down-to-earth girls and very talented," Lander said of McLeod and Doan. "And we're all from London, Ontario, so we'll be able to hang out outside of the band, which wasn't the case before."

Marx and Arroyo were casualties of the Artemis war, Lander said. She said the label's lack of financial support left her and her younger sister unable to keep Marx and Arroyo on a retainer when the band was off the road.

"We couldn't provide a future for them," Lander said. "We really had no idea what was going to happen."

Morgan and Mercedes, 22, formed Kittie as teenagers in 1996. The band's debut album, "Spit," was released in 1999 and sold 500,000 copies.

Doan and McLeod are the third guitarist-bassist pair to join the Lander sisters. The steady stream of new members may lead some to believe that the sisters don't play well with others, but Lander said that's not the case.

"We're very easy to get along with," she said. "Mercedes and I never asked for people to leave the band. We're not tyrants."

Morgan and Mercedes recently branched out from music, launching the Poisoned Black Clothing Co. in September. The clothing line includes T-shirts, sweat shirts and camisoles in various designs.

"It's really another extension of our personalities," Lander said of the clothes. "We just figured, 'Why don't we create stuff that we would wear?' "

Once Kittie gets off the road, Lander said, she hopes to negotiate a new label deal and hit the studio to record the band's fourth album.

E-mail: aberback@northjersey.com