Deep Purple, ‘=1’: Album Review

Since signing a new record deal 11 years ago, Deep Purple has found new life in a career that seemed to have bottomed out at the turn of the century. The move coincided with the band’s affiliation with veteran hard-rock producer Bob Ezrin, who’s produced the band’s past five albums, including 2020 highlight Whoosh! and =1, the 23rd LP of a six-decade run that now includes more than a dozen members among its ranks.

The group’s classic Mark II lineup – the one that made 1972’s Machine Head and included singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, bassist Roger Glover, keyboardist Jon Lord and drummer Ian Paice – is three-fifths back for =1, as the rejuvenated Deep Purple eyes the future with one foot firmly planted in its past.

Gillan, Glover and Paice, along with keyboardist Don Airey (a member since 2002) and new guitarist Simon McBride (replacing Steve Morse, who left following 2021’s covers album Turning to Crime), find little reason to break from the formula this late in their career. Like its immediate predecessors, =1 doesn’t throw any curves; this is Deep Purple sounding more like Deep Purple than they did on the records they released in the ’80s and ’90s.

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Deep Purple has said the album title translates as “Everything equals one.” And while the concept of a unified world is admirably optimistic, it has little to do with =1’s 13 songs. This band has never been conceptual and has rarely gotten too heavy in its thinking. Songs such as the opening “Show Me,” the ’70s throwback “Portable Door” and “Lazy Sod,” a strutting blues, reveal no pretense other than continuing their decades-old role as hard rock ambassadors.

Musically, Deep Purple pushes an aggressiveness that rivals contemporaries in their field; Airey and McBride bring homage but never sink to nostalgia (check out their keyboard and guitar interplay on “A Bit on the Side” and “Sharp Shooter”). The 78-year-old Gillan can’t hit those celebrated high notes these days, but he delivers his lines with a suitable slippery wink. Though =1 sags a bit in the back half and could be trimmed by a few songs, the album furthers a career renaissance for Deep Purple that shows few signs of waning.