A bit of a quicky for you with this one, a four track EP of covers from Australian pomp-rockers, The Neptune Power Foundation. I reviewed their last album, “Memoirs of a Rat Queen” back in October for this very site, giving them a 7/10 rating Here . This is a stop-gap four track to tide them over while they wait for their delayed 2020 European tour.

So what do we get? Two Queen tracks, and two Rainbow tracks – both of which are very evidently influences on their own output. First up is “Son and Daughter”, which works pretty well with a fuzzed up guitar sound and the more bottom-heavy audio giving the original a nice burst of extra menace. The oft-covered “Tie Your Mother Down” comes next, and again sounds great fun with that galloping riff perfectly accompanied by the vocals of Loz Sutch. Having a female vocalist works really well on all of these covers – and in fact choosing to cover songs originally recorded by the late, great Freddie Mercury or Ronnie James Dio shows the fact that there is no lack of confidence on her part!

The second brace of songs are of the Rainbow variety. “Kill the King” is probably the pick of the EP; not only is it (to my ears at least) the best actual song that’s covered here, it’s also the one that benefits most from having a little more inventiveness from the band. Absolutely tasty guitar work here, courtesy of Iverted Crucifox (no, really) and Search-and-DesTroy. The rhythm section of Jaytanic Ritual (bass) and Mr. Styx (drums) really get a great workout here too, particularly in that mid-song romp. Final song then is all-time rock-karaoke classic, “Long Live Rock n Roll”. It sounds pretty much as you’d imagine, except with a joyful swagger.

So, there you have it – four classic tracks, all played with a stack of joy and being relatively faithful to the originals. If you can pick this up, or choose to stream it, it’s going to add you some simple, toothy grin moments. I’m not sure I can really score it in the traditional sense, but then I guess The Neptune Power Federation don’t really care.

(Score ? Fun Chris Davison)

https://www.facebook.com/theneptunepowerfederation

https://theneptunepowerfederation.bandcamp.com/album/can-you-dig-europe-2020