Deep Purple – Splat!

Deep Purple – Splat!
earMUSIC
Release date: 03/07/26
Review by: Jon Deaux
8.5/10
Not many bands manage to get past three albums until someone’s grandmother passes away and they start arguing about the will, let alone twenty-four. They have titled their new album SPLAT!, which, for them, is just as appropriate as falling out of the chair.

Sixty years is not a career; that is a sentence; that is what you deserve for committing a serious crime. My grandmother’s marriage did not make it past the buffet at the wedding, and these four guys — there were actually quite a few combinations of these four over the decades, but let’s not go into details — are still going out there and putting up amplifiers like it is 1968 and they have not heard about the changes in the world yet.

Having produced 24 studio albums already, they decided to call this one SPLAT! Yes, with an exclamation mark included, for free. Like someone has just rung it in. “Yes, ambulance please — pigeon, motorway, it is not going to make it, no, don’t rush, we’ve all seen this before.” 24 albums and that is what they came up with for the name. Not “Legacy”. Not “Eternal”. SPLAT! I appreciate that. There is nothing left to protect at album number 24. Everything else has been said already. All that remains is the sound effect.

‘Arrogant Boy,’ the first track, launches straight into action without any warm-up and without any brakes, like some milk float that has been set free down a hill. And Ian Gillan launches into screaming about a kid who cannot read or write, but still gives the establishment a piece of his mind. Gillan is 80 now. The majority of the men of his age, if you raise your voice at him even slightly, he needs to sit down and eat a Werther’s Original. He is hitting the notes that would put a smoke alarm out of business. I know men of 40 who would hurt their muscles reaching for the remote, and this man is performing acrobatics with his vocals, legally requiring a risk assessment.

Next track is ‘Diabolo’ and it slows down slightly, but just slightly, like some guy who has been advised by his doctor to slow down a little and interpreted that as “slightly less aggressive.” Roger Glover’s bass is really large on this one, thunderous, the kind of bass that is felt in your fillings. Ian Paice is playing drums, as precisely as some guy who files his taxes a month ahead of schedule just to experience the feeling of achievement. And Simon McBride is playing guitars.

‘The Rider’ continues in the same vein and you can see Bob Ezrin’s handprint all over this production — the man must have looked at four guys whose total age is older than the Suez Canal and decided that this has to sound like a skip full of amplifiers rolling down a hill fast. Mission accomplished — it sounds loud. Really, ridiculously loud. The loudest thing to come out of the group of pensioners since my uncle realized that Brexit was happening for the second time and nobody had the heart to inform him that it was the same Brexit again.

‘The Lunatic’ is a bit psychedelic, a bit trippy, like a little detour into psychedelia. Very nice, very “lie down in a dark room and think about your life.” Then Don Airey joins in on “The Only Horse in Town” and starts absolutely demolishing a Hammond organ, thinking apparently that the organ has gone extinct at midnight and only he is responsible for saving it. Normally does not work, the organ as hero thing. Works here. For some reason. Into ‘Sacred Land, ‘ the pretty one, the melodic one, the one you could play at a wedding while quietly hoping that this marriage will last longer than the song, which — let’s face it — sets the bar rather low.

‘The Beating of Wings’ slows it right down, gets bluesy, gets soulful, and it is a real relief — and quite right, too, considering that the rest of the record sounds like an octogenarian running wind sprints, and even HE needs to take a break and sip a cup of tea once in a while.

Then comes ‘Guild Trippin’,’ and this is THE one.  Soft piano introduction, gentle, like it is putting you to bed — and then it erupts, full rock, no warnings. And the lyrics in this one are God and Charles Darwin sitting in a pub together and having a pint and having a proper rant about humanity. The first time in recorded history these two have agreed on something, and it only took a pint and a guitar solo to achieve that — which, frankly, is more progress than the United Nations managed to make in decades, and they have a budget for that.

‘Scriblin’ Gib’rish’ comes in hard and fast with the big riff and the big beat, no messing about — and then ‘Jessica’s Bra,’ and they clarify the meaning of the title immediately, in the first line, without any shame: it is a misprint above the entrance to a pub. Which is probably the most British apology put to a guitar riff. 80 years old, screaming himself hoarse about a misprint, and it is catchy. You will hum it in Lidl with no memory of where you have learned it, and no ability to explain yourself to the man behind the counter when he asks you what it is from.

‘Third Call’ and ‘My New Movie’ close the album near the end, Paice and Glover still going strong after 60 years of doing this — more dependable than my marriage, my mortgage, and definitely more dependable than my broadband, which has not worked properly since March. Then the title track ‘Splat!’ closes the door behind them, and that is it.

This is not a band living off “Smoke on the Water” royalties, a free bus pass, and living quietly by the TV set. This is a band that is collectively older than the National Trust and is still going “right — one more.” And that is better than the half of these twenty-five-year-old punks in skinny jeans currently pretending to be dangerous on the side stage of a festival. Those lads will be retired by forty, and Deep Purple are still out there at eighty, giving it their best.

Track list

1. Arrogant Boy
2. Diablo
3. The Rider
4. The Lunatic
5. The Only Horse In Town
6. Sacred Land
7. The Beating Of Wings
8. Guilt Trippin’
9. Scriblin’ Gib’rish
10. Jessica’s Bra
11. Third Call
12. My New Movie
13. Splat!

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