DEEP PURPLE - Splat!

The ninth metamorphosis of these hard rock veterans proceeds undaunted. With new guitarist Simon McBride on board, the storied British battleship seems to have capitalized on the creative momentum of their previous album "= 1", channeling it into a renewed expressive urgency. Not only have Deep Purple reclaimed the top of the charts, but they've also earned critical acclaim that's unusual for a band with such a long history.

A winning team doesn't change! "Splat!" therefore fields the same lineup as the previous album: Ian Gillan (vocals), Roger Glover (bass), Ian Paice (drums), Don Airey (keyboards) and Simon McBride (guitar). At the production helm once again sits the demiurge Bob Ezrin, supreme architect of a sonic alchemy capable of fusing technical grandeur with performative exuberance, brushing up against legend without ever slipping into the shallows of self-parody or the grotesque.
With "Splat!" the band shows off its vigor and craftsmanship, offering a series of songs that, while settling into agile, radio-friendly running times of three or four minutes, turn out dense with instrumental layering and free of dead spots. This happy gift for synthesis is embodied by the blistering lead single, "Arrogant Boy": a jolt of pure adrenaline in which the unshakeable rhythm section of Glover and Paice grinds out bars at supersonic speed, while Don Airey sends the organ on a genuine old-school gallop in the vein of "Highway Star", backed by McBride's pyrotechnic solos, virtuoso flourishes that plenty of aspiring rockers are already trying to imitate. All in just three minutes and eighteen seconds.

Without risking predictability, the new single "Diablo" (the story of a gondolier) also partly wins you over, thanks to a gutsy vocal performance and a finely crafted instrumental interlude, where the surrealism of the lyrics is skillfully balanced by executional rigor.
"Splat!" is an album that offers far more than one has any right to expect from a band of near-octogenarians. The dizzying crescendo of "The Only Horse In Town" is in keeping with the band's most glorious past, with Airey chasing the legendary Jon Lord ever more closely. This same creative lifeblood animates both the complex architecture of "Guilt Trippin'" and the solid authorial craft of "The Rider", though it's the epic "Sacred Land" (with the moog mimicking a flute) that's destined to stir the passions of longtime fans.

Solid and unshakeable, the new Deep Purple album allows itself some clever, mischievous digressions: from the Celtic-rock exuberance of "Jessica's Bra" — a curious lexical divertissement playing on a typo where bar becomes bra — to the elegant blues-rock with exquisitely jazzy shadings of "The Beating Of Wings", by way of the dark, magnetic Middle Eastern atmospheres of "The Lunatic".
Deep Purple's twenty-fourth studio album confirms the extraordinary flexibility and stylistic ease of the Mark IX lineup, capable of balancing hard rock philology with contemporary openness. Within the album's sonic continuum, tracks like "Scriblin' Gib'rish" and "Third Call" stand out for their well-crafted dynamic and structural handling, delivering the final blow with the title track. A song that, beyond a mighty bass line, displays a wealth of ideas and cues for a fiery live rendition, slotting effortlessly among the new classics of a band that has crossed the threshold of old age without ever looking ridiculous.

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05/07/2026