![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/morse1.jpg)
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There’s no reason to stop
Rock & Blues Muse reviews the new album Splat! in most glowing terms.
Deep Purple has created a complex, heavy, and instantly sonically recognizable album that, along with peers like Alice Cooper (another Ezrin client), respects and nods to their sound while never slavishly imitating it.
More interestingly, these songs are built around a theme, albeit one difficult to unpack. Liner notes clarify that frontman Gillan devised an end of humanity concept, “not in any crude apocalyptic sense but as a metamorphosis beyond physical existence.”
With that in mind, these wordy, occasional verbose and even rambling songs are a million miles removed from the simplicity of describing a hot car as a “Highway Star” or being too “Lazy” to get out of bed, to name check a few previous, more easily digestible touch-points.
Those intrigued enough can try to follow this saga along with the lyrics. But the songs are so musically muscular, driving, well-crafted and played with an excess of talent and precision, that the intricate, some might say head-scratching, story will be secondary.
Read more in Rock & Blues Muse.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
bonjour ,bref de mon coté je ne l’achèterai pas….ce n’est plus le son deep purple….mais de la variété!
June 29th, 2026 at 07:20@#1: Pop music? This is their most hard rocking album since A-Band-On in 1998. You might want to actually try listening to it before damning it out of hand.
June 29th, 2026 at 12:37The only reason to stop is on health grounds or the fans don’t turn up to watch you. Retirement is not a happy place for them.
June 29th, 2026 at 13:41Peace ✌️
#1 : la question de fond est: pourquoi consultez-vous ce site, puisque c’est pour systématiquement dénigrer ce groupe qui vous déçoit tant?
June 29th, 2026 at 16:48#1 Francis:
are you a Led Zeppelin fan secretly infiltrated here?
June 30th, 2026 at 09:19@4
Peut-être veut-il savoir si nous pouvons tous l’encourager un peu 😊
June 30th, 2026 at 10:26A Zeppelin fan? Where?!!!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-198-1363-29A%2C_Russland%2C_Artillerie-Beobachtung.jpg
What is and what should never be …
June 30th, 2026 at 12:23Again, Gillian’s version of Deep Purple I could never accept. To me, Deep Purple died in 1976. Even the first reunion tours were alright, nothing spectacular though. The fire was gone and quite often can never be recaptured.
June 30th, 2026 at 22:28I hear you, Timur, but isn’t that because the first half of the 70s was Purple‘s moment in time for a whole bunch of reasons? They never fully realigned with the pulse of the times in later decades. No band in a similar situation has.
I‘m always bemused when Big Ian struggles against the term Classic Rock. Of course they are, their whole aura and mystique is a Classic Rock-derived one, they bear testimony from a different age – still recording and performing new music is just an added bonus (I personally very much approve), but does anybody really think that the audiences at a DP gig and at the Reunionbow live attempts some 10 years ago differed all that much? And Reunionbow was definitely a Classic Rock spectacle – “Memories of Rock” anyone? -, albeit a (Uwe cowers in a ducking position … – very limp one.
Come on, Herr MacGregor, now say something nasty! 🤣
July 1st, 2026 at 14:59#8 Timur:
2026-1976= 50 years ago.
You live in the past, my dear friend. I don’t accept such a narrow vision with blinkers like packhorses!
There’s a lot of gold in what Purple have done since 1984, and there’s a huge history behind it, and it can’t all be reduced to “DP died in 1976.”
This is musical ignorance that starts directly from the ears, open your mind and you will discover a kaleidoscope of musical life from 1984 to today!
July 1st, 2026 at 20:51@ 10
Why did you, like me, stop seeing the band live in 2006?
July 2nd, 2026 at 13:02#11 Rock:
I stopped after the Rapture tour because Purple were doing fewer and fewer songs from the albums with Morse.
The last tour where they did a lot of new songs was the Abandon Tour, and I was tired of always hearing Smoke, Hush, Black Night in the encores and the same old songs!!!
but now for me the time has come to go back and see them live before the final concert, which could unfortunately be at any moment, and every new concert is blessed by Apollo and Hermes!
July 2nd, 2026 at 18:04Too many Trolls here. I am looking foward to having the new album on Friday and seeing them perform in September. Haters can’t take that from me.
July 2nd, 2026 at 21:09@12
I understand.
I had seen DP with Morse for the 10th time since Purpendicular unable to get something elevating out of it anymore.
Its tickling here but right now I feel convinced I oughtta go.
Call me whatever you like but , ….I know for various reasons that it has become impossible now, but if Blackmore were there I d have dragged myself to it.
July 3rd, 2026 at 09:32“But if Blackmore were there I’d have dragged myself to it.”
Be careful what you wish for, RV, that is all I’m saying. Nostalgia is the opposite of enlightenment. Ritchie completely stopped developing as a rock musician 30 years ago – after a prolonged period of already delayed growth before. Only people who didn’t see him ten years ago could wish for his return now. Does anybody really believe that Ritchie would still be able to create new music with DP today or do you just want to see Made in Japan reenacted with 4/5 of the original line-up and watch an octogenarian smash a Strat?
Flavio, I don’t get it. You’re right that the years after ROTD saw a pitiful decline in Morse numbers in the set, but all that changed in the Ezrin era where already the first tour of Now What?! featured loads of new stuff. Then albums came in rapid succession and they did that every time except with Whoosh! which was due to solely outside circumstances never properly toured with Steve – very much lamentably so. But in general, DP consistently re-augmented their set with fresh numbers already 10 years ago!
July 3rd, 2026 at 12:25#15 Uwe:
On the Abandon tour they played up to 6 or maybe even 7 new songs between Purpendicular and Abandon, a record never equaled, until =1 with 6 new songs (+ Uncommon Man).
They never matched this number of new songs on subsequent tours, even playing only 1 new song at the end of the Infinite tour (adding SIFLS and Uncommon man though)
July 3rd, 2026 at 15:16I see a typo, a word missing…
I assume I dont ve to point it out
Though surprised by the new album I am a pratical Dutchie.
High ticketprices and Gillan wont sing like in the studio.
Of course I never for 1 moment meant that sentence litterally.
I am very aware of his health and limitations.
Maybe one day I ll regret it , looking back, but for now it is what it is.
Its to hard to figure out where my reasonable criticism is too much influenced by my own mood or not.
Its saddening but a mix of factors have made me into “not eager enough” anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1bGHXoOu9o
July 3rd, 2026 at 21:41When I saw them on the Now What?! tour, they played five or six new numbers. When was the last time you heard the Rolling Stones play five or six new numbers from a current album?
July 3rd, 2026 at 21:49#18 Uwe
the Rolling Stones playing 5 or 6 new songs?
July 4th, 2026 at 11:49I think never