Måneskin
RUSH!

From the day they won the Sanremo Festival with "Zitti e buoni", the Måneskin have experienced incredible and unexpected success, leading them to triumph spectacularly at the 2021 Eurovision. Subsequently, the Roman band discovered on X Factor has sold out numerous concerts around the continent and even managed to gain visibility in the United States, as evidenced by appearances on the famous show hosted by New York comedian Jimmy Fallon.

It is undoubtedly difficult to explain the chaos that has erupted recently, however, one thing is certain: thanks to the Måneskin, twenty-somethings have reconnected with rock, a genre long thought to be dead and nearly entirely replaced in many under-30s' playlists by sounds belonging to the urban universe (rap, trap, nu-soul, etc...).

In such a situation, it is fair to wonder whether Damiano and company have broken through thanks to a massive marketing campaign based on their winning image (they are cute, well-dressed, and have excellent stage presence) and whether the raw material, that is, their musical offering, has been deliberately kept in the background due to obvious compositional limits already emerging in the group's first two works.

The year 2023 thus presents itself as a real test for the young rockers. It's no coincidence that it is at the beginning of 2023 that Rush! is released, their third album preceded by some singles which, despite some more than explicit copying (the guitar riff of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" not too disguised in "Supermodel"), nonetheless instilled hope.

Partly recorded in Los Angeles under the guidance of Swedish producer Max Martin, known for crafting the sound of true hits like "…Baby One More Time" by Britney Spears and "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys, Rush! marks the true international debut of our heroes and partially confirms the impressions gained from listening to their previous works.

In the fifty-two minutes of Rush!, in fact, the Måneskin draw from a rather broad imaginary (the new wave filtered through the pop lens of the Franz Ferdinand, the crossover style of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, ballads like Hoobastank, etc...) and associate it with a blatantly catchy and mainstream attitude.

From this point of view, there would be nothing to object to, as many artists have tried to soften the rough edges of rock and make it accessible to the masses. The problem, if anything, lies elsewhere: in the irreverent poses that have been tailored to them, which I personally find fake, constructed at the table; in the lack of great creativity and some rather banal lyrics; in the exaggerated tracklist, where we notice more than one piece that could have stayed in the drawer; in the clumsy incursions into Dante's language, almost entirely forgettable (the tracks, it should be noted, are mostly sung in English).

The panorama offered by Rush!, in short, is not entirely convincing. Aside from the singles, more or less successful (I especially liked "Gossip", which even features Tom Morello on electric guitar), what remains is a sequence of songs in Italian to be crossed off and some rather ugly moments (the post-punk of "BLA BLA BLA" and "MAMMAMIA", for example) that do not amplify the adrenaline rush that the title might suggest.

There is something salvageable (the concluding "The Loneliest", a slow, in its own way, moving song; the choruses of the aggressive "Gasoline", characterized by a remarkable rhythm section), but it can't redeem an inconsistent album, also compromised by immature lyrics, teetering between harmless provocations, frequent sexual allusions, and the usual love/youth troubles.

In conclusion, Rush! is an LP that, while containing some successful tracks, doesn’t do justice to the Måneskin phenomenon and reveals it for what it is: a product artfully constructed by record labels and thrust into the fray too soon.

Damiano, Victoria, Ethan, and Thomas know how to play, sing well, speak excellent English, and have fun when performing live, but unfortunately, they are still a band far from maturity and unable to leave a mark.

If they work hard or find a worthy production team capable of writing their pieces and properly curating the tracklist, they might manage to change course. However, at this point, I doubt they can offer us any great surprises.