Deep Purple set new album ‘Splat!’ and an 86-date 2026 world tour in motion

Deep Purple are lining up another full-scale chapter. The band have announced ‘Splat!’, their 24th studio album and first follow-up to 2024’s =1, with a release date of July 3 via earMUSIC. A world tour will follow later in the year, stretching into 2026, and pre-orders and pre-saves are available here.

The record reunites the group with producer Bob Ezrin, whose credits include KISS, Pink Floyd and Lou Reed, and is being framed as one of the heaviest Deep Purple albums in years. The tracks were cut live in the studio, a choice that sits neatly alongside the band’s long habit of presenting themselves as a working rock unit rather than a museum piece. Ian Gillan, still at the center of it all, described the current line-up as a distinctly present-tense version of the band he knew in the 1970s.

“Where we are now with this incarnation of Deep Purple feels very much like a very ‘now’ version of Deep Purple as it was in the seventies,” Gillan said.

“I have to say, now we are very much back in with material that is compatible with ‘Highway Star’, ‘Smoke on the Water’, ‘Lazy’ – the dynamics, the balance, and the fun of the music we made from ‘69 to ‘73. Deep Purple is in a great place right now.”

The album will arrive in a range of formats, including a 2LP gatefold 180g boxset with a 12-page booklet, a CD digisleeve, three exclusive 10-inch vinyl records featuring live recordings from the band’s 2024 tour, and an exclusive 7-inch with bonus track GUINNESIS. The full tracklist runs from Arrogant Boy and Diablo through to the title track Splat!, with stops at The Rider, The Lunatic, Jessica’s Bra and My New Movie along the way.

Deep Purple’s touring schedule is just as ambitious. The band have booked an 86-date world tour that begins in June and ends in December, with a major London show at the Royal Albert Hall on November 25. Tickets are on sale now, with UK and Europe dates available here and North America tickets here.

That itinerary takes the band across Finland, Norway, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Italy and more before heading to the US and Canada in August, then through Eastern and Central Europe in the autumn. By November, they are back in the UK for arena and theatre dates in Newcastle, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester and London, before closing out the year in Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Mexico.

The scale of the run underlines how much Deep Purple continue to operate on the level of legacy act and active road band at the same time. They are not easing into a symbolic victory lap. They are still putting out new material, still booking venues that test whether the catalogue can keep carrying the weight of the present.

Last year, Gillan said retirement was “not far off” after revealing that he was losing his eyesight. “It’s one of those things. I’ve only got 30 per cent vision,” he said. “That won’t get better. It makes life mysterious. The hardest thing is working on my laptop. I can’t see anything on the screen unless I use my peripheral vision – I pick up a line by looking at it sideways. But you find a way. You adapt.”