One day the Melbourne party band were entertaining energetic crowds in London with their ska-jazz, the next they were rushing to grab a seat on one of the last planes back to Australia.

"It was unbelievable how quickly it turned around," Cat Empire frontman Felix Riebl reflects this week.

"In two or three days the whole world just cottoned on to this thing.

"It was a pretty dramatic time to be in a double-decker tour bus sleeping the whole band and doing shows, to then be rushing to the airport to get home and quarantining. Just a really sudden shift."

In the five months since, Australia seemingly became one of the global success stories in dealing with coronavirus, before the second wave wrecked havoc on Melbourne, jolted many of us out of our complacency and led to Victorian premier Daniel Andrews declaring a state of emergency.

"The first lockdown had a very different atmosphere to this one," Riebl says from his Melbourne home. "The second one is a lot more depressive as a whole city.

"There's a different mood when we do go out on the street and see masked people around. There's a glumness to it. But hopefully we're gonna pull through it."

Lockdown hasn't been completely bleak for Riebl. The 39-year-old has had plenty to keep him occupied. Six weeks ago he and partner Eloise Mignon welcomed the birth of their first son, joining daughter Anya, 3.

"It's a great age to be in lockdown because it's still that magical age of childhood where you can spend whole days doing things, so in that sense, it's been a real blessing," he says.

In the first lockdown Riebl wrote new music in his home studio and during the second wave he's been dedicated to preparing the release of his new solo EP, Black Room White Walls.

The record follows his solo albums Into The Rain (2011) and the whimsical Paper Doors (2016) which spawned the well-received song In Your Arms, that featured Canadian-American star Martha Wainwright.

The five-track Black Room White Walls was recorded over several years between New York and Melbourne, but due to an intense touring schedule with The Cat Empire and the release of the six-piece band's eighth album Stolen Diamonds last year the opportunity to release the EP hadn't arisen.

Anyone expecting a record in the style of The Cat Empire or even another Paper Doors will be disappointed. That's not to say Black Room White Walls isn't good. In fact, it's arguably the best record Riebl's been involved in for years. But you're more likely to mosh than dance.

Black Room and White Walls are anthemic rockers that combine elements of New Order and Coldplay, Gloria channels Riebl's love of Russian composer Rachmaninoff and, Dreamers, was inspired by Pink Floyd.

"I wanted it to be really raw and powerful," he says. "The first three songs of the EP, are really rocky with big choruses, with no fat on them at all.

"There's an angst to it. A real dark energy in there, but in the anthemic chorus I feel that it is positive.

"I've been interested in that interplay between what you consider to be a positive, almost joyous experience of listening to music, while immersed in something that's dealing with public anxiety and angst of the changing time."

Riebl formed The Cat Empire at 17 with bandmates Ollie McGill and Ryan Monro due to a shared love of jazz and Latin music. They became one of the most popular Australian acts of the 2000s due to their exhilarating live performances and catchy singles Hello, Two Shoes and The Chariot.

Riebl says he gains a greater clarity of purpose from his solo work.

"The space from the writing of it and the imaging of it into the studio for me flows much more naturally," he says. "That's nothing against The Cat Empire. The Cat Empire is this band that's so based around a really different collection of musical individuals.

"It's always been about the tension that's created there and the live experience. The Cat Empire is a very unique band in itself and has it's own process, which is based around many people bringing in something different."

In previous interviews Riebl has described performing as the ultimate. It makes him feel "alive". So how is he coping without the stage now and into the foreseeable future?

"There's nothing quite like the uptake of the occasion on a night where people are arriving with a sense of joy and excitement about being somewhere together," he says.

"Performing to that is really great. I'm itching to get back out there."

Felix Riebl's Black Room White Walls was released on Friday.