The Poodles – Clash of The Elements

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A third album in three years for Sweden’s former Eurovision entrants The Poodles, fronted by former Talisman drummer Jakob Samuel, and they have only slightly improved. Their misleadingly-named debut Metal Will Stand Tall set the tone and, despite a change of guitar player (Pontus Norgren left to join HammerFall in 2008), the kind of rock songs that are really little more than pop music with guitars are still the order of the day. Tracks like Caroline, I Rule The Night, and Like No Tomorrow are their best Gotthard impressions, and the latter is probably the best song they’ve offered so far, but if sweetly catchy pop melodies don’t spoil the songs, terrible lyrics do. Too Much of Everything initially opens with military drums and strings, similar to intros Primal Fear have been using recently. Guitars come in suggesting something a little more epic than normal accompanied by louder strings, but these drop away suddenly to a piano and vocals reminiscent of 1930s/’40s swing; different but still a new and interesting angle. This doesn’t last long either and the song quickly descends into a stock power ballad. Give Me A Sign is a strong track, amongst the heaviest they’re recorded so far, recalling Scorpions, and the slower paced Sweet Enemy is also better than everything on the first two albums. Whitesnake’s influence is stamped all over 7 Days And 7 Nights, but that is the last decent song as the second half of the disc is almost entirely by-numbers rockers and soul-less ballads. Clash of The Elements is their best, but it’s still not really good enough.

Written by Andy Lye
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