Slot Relient K Is For Karaoke alongside The Bird and the Bee Sides and Let it Snow Baby, Let it Reindeer. It’s another of those quirky sets that this band seems to love to release between proper albums. In this case, it’s an album of surprisingly faithful covers. Of course, Relient K still sound like themselves, but they don’t attempt to make changes to these classics.

I appreciated the song choice here too. With these packages there can be a tendency to prove one’s critical credentials by breaking out a cover of The Smiths or something.

Instead, Relient K stay uber-mainstream by offering their take on everything from “Africa” by Toto to Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” It all holds together pretty well, and while not at all inventive, it’s a fun album to listen to throughout its length.

Things don’t work out quite as well with the more serious covers. Matt Thiessen’s voice is simply too sweet to do justice to the Stone Temple Pilots’ “Interstate Love Song,” and their take on Nada Surf’s “Inside of Love” is sleep-inducing. Be that as it may, two thirds of the tracks here will have you hitting repeat.

Four stars out of five