Italian rock sensations Måneskin have barely stopped since a 2021 Eurovision win plucked them out of their boot-shaped niche and propelled them to international renown. The frenetic pace of seizing their day shows up on Rush!, a third album about adjusting to the reality lag brought on by, among other things, recording in LA. Songs such as Supermodel and Gossip deal with the interesting local customs, while Timezone is a hefty ballad about singer Damiano David calling someone “every hour” so he can tell them he’s “losing [his] mind”. Pop uber-producer Max Martin is somewhat inevitably on hand to make sure the album gleams even harder than this sharp, lurid foursome do on their own.
Unfortunately, Rush! is also a record that dashes about trying to tick all the boxes, with Måneskin’s English-language songs far outnumbering the Italian ones. And even though David can be perceptive and nuanced in a foreign tongue – Bla Bla Bla is a minimal new wave banger whose pithiness should not be confused with simplicity – he has a lot to get off his chest in his mother tongue. The caustic, almost rapped La Fine confirms that success is a Pandora’s box, while the gravelly glam-grunge of Il Dono Della Vita imagines returning “the gift of life”.
