The ninth metamorphosis of the hard-rock veterans proceeds undaunted. With the entry of new guitarist Simon McBride, the historic British battleship seems to have capitalized on the creative momentum of the previous album “= 1”, translating it into a renewed expressive urgency. Not only did Deep Purple regain the top of the charts, but they garnered unusual critical acclaim for such an enduring band.
You don't change the team that wins! “Splat!” therefore features the same band as the previous album: Ian Gillan (vocals), Roger Glover (bass), Ian Paice (drums), Don Airey (keyboards) and Simon McBride (guitar). At the helm of the production once again sits the demiurge Bob Ezrin, supreme architect of a sonic alchemy capable of blending grandeur technique and executive exuberance, lapping the legend without ever slipping into the shallows of self-parody or the grotesque.
With “Splat!” the group demonstrates vigor and skill, proposing a series of songs which, although settling on the agile and radio-friendly lengths of three or four minutes, are full of instrumental stratifications and free of dead time. This happy capacity for synthesis is demonstrated in the lightning-fast lead single, “Arrogant Boy”: a rush of pure adrenaline in which the stainless rhythm section of Glover and Paice grind out bars at supersonic speed, while Don Airey launches the organ into an authentic ride of times past in the wake of “Highway Star”, supported by McBride's pyrotechnic solos, virtuosities that many apprentice rockers are already trying to imitate. All in just three minutes and eighteen seconds.
Without risking falling into predictability, even the new single “Diablo” (the story of a gondolier) is partly convincing, thanks to a performance gritty vocal and a finely crafted instrumental interlude, where the surrealism of the text is expertly balanced by the rigor of the performance.
“Splat!” it's an album that offers much more than one should expect from a group of almost octogenarians. The dizzying crescendo of “The Only Horse In Town” is in line with the band's most glorious past, with Airey increasingly chasing the legendary Jon Lord. This creative juice animates both the complex architecture of “Guilt Trippin'” and the solid authorship of “The Rider”, even if it is the epic “Sacred Land” (with the moog that simulates a flute) the track destined to reawaken the passion of old fans.
Solid and stainless, Deep Purple's new album allows itself intelligent and mocking digressions: from the Celtic-rock exuberance of “Jessica's Bra” – curious entertainment lexical that plays on a typo where bar becomes bra (bra) – up to the elegant blues-rock with exquisitely jazz veins of “The Beating Of Wings”, passing through the dark and 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 and contemporary openings. In the continuum sound of the album, episodes like “Scriblin' Gib'rish” and “Third Call” stand out for a good dynamic and structural management, dealing the final blow with the title track. A song that, in addition to a powerful bass line, showcases a cloud of ideas and ideas for a fiery live version, effortlessly entering among the new classics of a band that has crossed the border of senility without ever appearing laughable.
05/07/2026
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
