Måneskin: Rush! album review — strutting songs of sex ’n’ drugs from Eurovision winners

“Cocaine is on the table,” Damiano David sings in his slurred, nasal voice on Måneskin’s new album. The line, pun unintended, cheekily alludes to the controversy when he and his Italian bandmates won Eurovision in 2021. During a cutaway shot in the televised ceremony, millions of viewers misinterpreted the singer’s innocent attempt to locate broken glass below a table as the sight of a flamboyant bare-chested rocker bending down to heartily ingest a triumphal ridge of cocaine. A negative drugs test shortly afterwards endorsed his protestations of blamelessness. There was no cocaine on the table.

The episode encapsulates the intoxicating mix of rock and schlock in the Måneskin make-up. Named after the Danish word for “moonlight”, for no better reason it seems than bassist Victoria De Angelis’s half-Danish parentage, the Roman foursome are not a million miles from The Darkness’s tongue-in-cheek riffola. But they take their silliness more seriously. When De Angelis had what the FT style guide might call a “nip-slip wardrobe malfunction” while performing at a televised MTV awards ceremony last year, and the camera prudishly panned away, the band were affronted. “It shows that there are still many, many prejudices towards rock bands and towards women,” David solemnly intoned afterwards.

According to the quartet, their new album Rush! has been inspired by Radiohead and social critique. The reality is different. Reflecting their immense success since winning Eurovision, with more than 6.5bn streams to their name, it teams them with top chart producers, including the toppest of them all, Max Martin. The results sound like a pumped-up hard rock band playing would-be pop earworms on an album with the kind of questionably tasteless cover art last seen in the 1980s.

Unlike their previous albums, the songs are mostly in English. David drawls about carnal escapades and the fast life, from strutting stuff about sex ‘n’ drugs (“Feel”) to cabaret-rock about brewer’s droop (“Bla Bla Bla”). The Depeche Mode-esque “Gasoline” is purportedly about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, although geopolitics are hard to locate in verses about a spoilt heiress.

Basslines are uncompromising and upfront, in keeping with De Angelis’s cult status among fans. Drummer Ethan Torchio manoeuvres his drum pedal like a race car driver. Guitarist Thomas Raggi cranks out solos with different tones and a good sense of groove. At 17 tracks, Rush! runs out of steam with several ballads too many, but the buzz is fun while it lasts.

★★★☆☆

‘Rush!’ is released by Columbia Records