Måneskin have come a long way in the short time since they were plucky teenagers busking on the streets of Rome. Arriving via the Italian X Factor and their outrageous win at 2021’s Eurovision Song Contest, the quartet are already one of rock’s biggest bands: racking up billions of streams, supporting The Rolling Stones, crashing awards shows in a feelgood whirlwind of old-school swagger, dubious ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ and assless chaps. But they’re still hungry for more. Third album Rush! feels like a promise that they won’t be happy until they’re right on the tippity-top.
Some will say that’s a negative. The switch to English language lyrics, for instance, on songs like Own My Mind, Timezone and The Loneliest sacrifices complexity and quirky individuality at the altar of (even greater) UK/American success. The hip-swinging pop-rock pulsating through Bla Bla Bla and Feel, too, treads a fine line between retro-rock reliability and reversion to formula. And collaborations with a small army of superstar songwriters and pop producers – Sly, Captain Cuts, Max Martin – delivers both big money slickness and its own heard-it-somewhere-before familiarity.