In the end, Måneskin’s legacy was not to be found in the beautiful pop album of Damiano David as a soloist, nor in the DJ projects of Victoria De Angelis, who also “beats” the track; waiting to understand Ethan Torchio’s ideas for the future, at the moment everything that has characterized the band – namely, a glittery and classic rock, with an international scope, very little Italian – is in the hands of Thomas Raggi, guitarist and (at this point) true rock soul of the group, who has just released his debut album, Masquerade. Surprise: it’s a good album, but above all it’s a rock album with the proper trappings of the case, in some ways even more fundamentalist than those of Måneskin, who also had a certain inclination towards melody, almost absent here. On the plate, in fact, there are eight songs recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Tom Morello, guitarist of Rage Against the Machine, a band symbol of American rap-metal and absolute icon of the alternative scene. With Raggi and the others they had met at the time of the collaboration for Gossipamong the first pins that Måneskin pinned on their chest once they left our country, together with the duet with Iggy Pop. They never left each other again.

A real rock record

This time, however, also to make up for the absence of a band behind him and in general of a charismatic frontman – something that Raggi is not and does not aim to be, that’s already fine, on the guitar – it was decided to work even bigger. The guest list, in fact, includes heavyweights of international rock from the Nineties and Noughties such as Matt Sorum of Guns N’ Roses, Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nic Cester of Jet, Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, Sergio Pizzorno of Kasabian and, on the authors side (which always includes both Raggi and Morello), a sacred monster of the alternative circuit like Beck. In the middle, there is a very tight cover of a classic like You spin me round (Like a record) of Dead or Alive, for the occasion with Kapranos on vocals. Of course, more than a record, it must be said, this seems like a sort of compilation: the various guests, all directly involved in the writing of the pieces, despite belonging more or less to the same scene are distant from each other, which pushes these eight songs in as many different directions, with Morello again with his square riffs and Raggi (incredibly expressive in the solos, much more than he was with Måneskin, while he needs to be revisited in the singing parts) to make ends meet.

Well, they manage to stem this raging river. Above all, Masquerade it doesn’t fall into the trap of seeming impersonal – the biggest risk, with all those names, is paradoxically that of getting lost – or of setting itself up as a revival of the rock that once was. Of course, there are no traces of the few contemporary sensations of the genre, such as Fontaines DC or Idles, but that doesn’t mean it sounds dated, on the contrary. If anything, it contains some twists (Keep the pack And Cat got your tongue above all, anything but scholastic) and in general carries forward an idea of ​​rough, but even stylish, rock cool. There aren’t those rounded edges that had contributed to ensuring the great success of Måneskin, from which Raggi distances himself with the spirit of an adolescent who approaches the guitar for the first time, a sort of a-historical maximalism which, in the end, works.

Raggi’s credibility

And yet, once again, the pantheon of divinities that has entered his playroom this time is impressive and draws first of all from the more alternative, or in any case not yet too historicised, scene of the genre (there is, in short, no Iggy Pop on duty). If at the time of the band collaborations of this type – let’s not be fools – they were sometimes operations win to winwith Måneskin building credibility and the wise old man on duty rejuvenating, now the attention and the very nature of the project are inevitably less, less on the crest of the wave. In short, what if this was just a whim that Raggi wanted to indulge in before returning to the mothership? Masquerade it doesn’t have the stigmata of great success (at the start, of course, then who knows), those that, for example, David’s solo career has. But also for this reason, a guest list of this type sounds even heavier: because it is probably a certificate of artistic esteem, demonstrating that, on the international market, Raggi and Måneskin in general There areare considered, indeed. Even from those who, as in this case, hang out on tours that purists, who have always criticized the four, define as “real rock”. While waiting to understand the implications for the future, that’s no small thing.

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