Prisma

Prisma, released on 26 January 2018, became The Poodles' last album — a seventh record and a project piece on which all ten songs are covers. The band deliberately chose material from outside rock and metal: anything already in their own territory, they reasoned, would come out too close to the original. The one exception is Deep Purple's “Soldier of Fortune,” which closes the record. The label, as before, is Gain Music. It opens with the Osmonds' “Crazy Horses.” “Maniac” follows, from Michael Sembello and the film Flashdance; then David Guetta, then Depeche Mode, then Swedish House Mafia — the origins are wildly mixed. The second half runs through Elton John's “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” Blondie's “Call Me,” Fleetwood Mac's “Go Your Own Way,” and Adele's “Set Fire to the Rain,” rebuilt as a power ballad. Yet put through Jakob Samuel's voice, the glittering keys and the clean-cut guitars, every one of them becomes a Poodles song — enough that, not knowing the originals, you might take them for the band's own. At 35 minutes it is short, and that decisiveness suits it. That December, the band announced the end.