![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan7.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/gillan2.jpg)
Rejuvenated again
German site Musicreviews.de reviews =1 in positively glowing terms, and gives it a score of 13 out of 15 (same as Whoosh and inFinite, while Now What?! got 12/15 from them). Usual reverse translations caveats… (you know the drill).
When listening to “=1” you quickly come to the conclusion that DEEP PURPLE really did everything right with their choice of McBride. While the record title refers to the idea that in an increasingly complex world everything will ultimately lead to a unified core, you can also apply it to the group and say that they have grown together with their new guitarist so quickly that you would think he had been on board for a long time.
This does not mean, of course, that he does not set any clearly audible accents, on the contrary: the record seems as fresh as Steve Morse’s 1996 debut “Purpendicular” and is not stingy with welcome surprises. Let’s take the full-bodied opener ‘Show Me’ with its many fresh subtleties, starting with Ian Gillan’s spoken vocals, a chorus with a chromatically descending melody at the end, and Don Airey’s synthesizer (instead of the programmatic organ) in a solo exchange with the guitar. These duels are a recurring element on “=1”, whereas the track, with its short and dramatic finale, forms a bracket together with the closing ‘Bleeding Obvious’ in that both numbers are bursting with clever ideas on both the harmonic and melodic level and build up in an exciting way towards the end.
Read more in musikreviews.de in German or via Google Translate in other languages.
Thanks to Tobias Janaschke for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
These Krauts do get carried away in their overzealous fândöm, Himmel!
July 15th, 2024 at 21:05Yo,
Good news once again ! Only 3 / 7 days to go, & then the short wait from the postman lol !
Peace !
July 16th, 2024 at 00:10I haven’t felt such frantic wait since Perfect Strangers
July 16th, 2024 at 14:07Should we start handing these out? Perhaps a limited edition in purple?
https://www.inkoservice.de/media/image/e8/d4/32/tena-men-underwear-maxi.png
July 16th, 2024 at 15:33A solemn date,July 16th.
July 16th, 2024 at 16:01Jon passed 12 years ago today. R.I.P.
Anyone mentioning Purpendicular is raising
July 16th, 2024 at 18:25The stakes. Would be fun 30 years later.
Jon never heard any of the Ezrin era stuff his former band recorded, I wonder what he would have thought and would he ever have said anything at all? He certainly wasn’t very vocal about Bananas and ROTD.
It’s a pity that he had only 10 more years to do his own stuff. And it just occurred to me that Don has now been almost as long with DP (22 years) as Jon (26 years, albeit in two stints: 1978-76 and 1984-2002). It’s unlikely that Don will still achieve Jon’s years of service, but not entirely impossible if DP stay active for four more years. Health allowing, they would probably do it. 😂
Jon was only 71 when he died, that is no longer a remote age for me, I’ll be turning 64 this year (cue in Beatles track …), with the exception of Simon, everyone in the band is now considerably older than Jon was when he passed.
I always wanted to see his grave, anyone here been there?
July 16th, 2024 at 19:45> the record seems as fresh as Steve Morse’s 1996 debut “Purpendicular”
I will listen and see, but I think someone here is writing “silly things”. 😉
July 17th, 2024 at 09:45https://metalplanetmusic.com/2024/07/album-review-deep-purple-1/
July 17th, 2024 at 10:58Not just a great Deep Purple album, nor just a great rock album, ‘=1’ is a truly great album that deserves to be celebrated far and wide. The kings have returned to reclaim their throne. All hail the kings.
Said the informed listener.
July 17th, 2024 at 16:03Yo,
We all come with a ticket-to-life that has an unknown expiry-date, & yes its sad for us that Jon left, but positive for him that the suffering ended, & that’s a good thing.
RIP Jon.
Peace !
July 17th, 2024 at 23:25