= 1 follows up on their 2020 album 'Whoosh!', that, to my surprise, brought me back on board for the first time since 1976's 'Come Taste The Band', which was also my first Deep Purple album. I had skipped everything in between.
From the most famous line up John Lord and Ritchie Blackmore are missing. With replacements Don Airey and McBride the band is still able to come up with good songs. Of course, not a single one has the impact 'In Rock' had. That is impossible. The four older members are well into their seventies and not experimenting with a new sort of music as the band was as 20-somethings in 1970. In a song like 'Now You're Talking' some of that original shine still comes across totally convincing. Old men can rock with ease.
The one having the hardest time to keep up is singer Ian Gillan. At 78 his voice is a far cry from what it once was. That is okay. He fronts Deep Purple, even if it costs him energy. The whole is Deep Purple and what people expect the band to sound like. In part that is a formula. Either a guitar solo id followed by a keyboard solo or the other way around. We have heard it many times before. 76 year old Don Airey hammers his Hammond organ. The style of Jon Lord's improvisations on Johann Sebastian Bach is still leading but I would say Airey has brought in his own touch, also in experimenting with different sounds for the solos.
McBride is on fire in some of the songs and breaths some extra life into the songs. His brings in some more modern sounding metal riffs and mixes them with classic rock riffs and solos. That mix is exciting at times, even where he obviously plays something that is more in line with Deep Purple's legacy. (Please, don't scare off the 60 and 70 year old fans.) I like this mix for one.
The drumming of Ian Paice is fantastic, I am really enjoying listening to him, as I already did decades ago. Roger Glover's bass playing is just as great. He has the deep end of Deep Purple with ease it seems. Their Deep Purple bedrock is an important part of the band and it shows/hears.
The biggest surprise comes in the final song, 'Bleeding Obvious', with its David Bowie style interlude. If this is a promise for the future, then instead of = 1 most likely being Deep Purple's last album, we still have at least one exciting album to go.
= 1 is an album that on the one hand is a little too obviously going on routine, while on the other it has more than just its moments. It shows that the band has life in it. Knowing the age of its members everything can be the last. Listening to this album, it seems like the hard rock veterans have decided to defy time. Good for them and us.
Wout de Natris - van der Borght
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