In 2007, band member Joe Camilleri said "We could have done it if we'd kept punching, but the band actually disintegrated, basically, looking back, because we were too tired. We should have just taken a year off. But what happened was we were right at the end of the period when, in order to flog a record in the States, you were virtually out promoting the one you had out the year before. So it was a totally asynchronous situation. We were having to dig into what we viewed as archives when we went out of the country."[3]
Carly Darling from Billboard said; "On the group's second US album, Step Lively, the infectious sound staked out on last year's Screaming Targets is honed and refined." adding "The listener is in for one of the hottest sleeper albums of the year"... "From the heavy metal/funk rave-up of "Sweet Honey Sweet" and the Latin tinge of "Too Hot" to the summer breeze effervesces of "P.T", Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons create their own persona."
Darling commented that all of the songs are of the "boy meets girl/boy loves girl" variety, but each are "handled in their own way" but added "for sheer good time grace, nothing on the album beats "Puppet on a String".[5]