Måneskin Fragments Into Three Solo Projects and Proves the Band Was Holding Them Back

By KAZI Magazine Staff, May 25, 2026

The distortion on Damiano David's "Silverlines" sits lower in the mix than anything Måneskin ever committed to tape, which tells you everything about where this went. Labrinth produced the track and you can hear him pulling David away from the testosterone-soaked glam stomp that made "I Wanna Be Your Slave" impossible to ignore in 2021. The vocal sits naked over programmed drums and a guitar tone so polite it could score a cologne ad. This is what happens when a frontman who became famous for sexually antagonistic rock theater decides he wants to be taken seriously as a songwriter. The result is a debut solo album, Funny Little Fears, that peaked at number one in Belgium and charted in twenty countries while sounding like it was designed to offend absolutely nobody.

Måneskin released Rush! in 2023 with Max Martin producing, which was already a warning sign. Martin specializes in making rock bands sound like they are auditioning for pop radio, and Rush! delivered exactly that, smoothing out the jagged Roma punk edges that made Il ballo della vita and Teatro d'ira dangerous. The band recorded fifty songs for that album, which means they had enough material to make something that mattered and chose instead to let Martin and the MXM production team sand it down into something that could slot between Imagine Dragons and whatever algorithm-optimized playlist Spotify was pushing that quarter. The deluxe edition added five more tracks in November 2023, including "Honey (Are U Coming?)", and the momentum should have carried into 2024 with arena tours and a tighter, meaner follow-up.

Instead, Måneskin fragmented. David went solo, Thomas Raggi recruited Tom Morello to produce an eight-track instrumental record called Masquerade with Chad Smith on drums and Beck appearing as a guest, and the band that was supposed to resurrect guitar-driven rock for a generation that had forgotten it existed turned into three separate projects that sound like they are trying to prove something to critics who were never going to be convinced anyway. Raggi's record, released December 2025, is the most interesting of the lot because Morello knows how to make a guitar sound like it is tearing through sheet metal, but instrumental rock records are where guitar players go to impress other guitar players, not to move culture. The guest list reads like a late-night call sheet, Matt Sorum and Nic Cester and Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos showing up to add credibility to a project that did not need credibility, it needed a reason to exist beyond showcasing technique.

David's Funny Little Fears got a deluxe edition in September 2025 with five new tracks, including "Talk to Me" featuring Tyla and Nile Rodgers, which is the kind of collaboration that happens when an artist wants to prove they can work with legends but forgets to write a song that justifies the personnel. Rodgers has been playing the same rhythm guitar part since "Le Freak" in 1978 and he plays it here again, which is fine if the song has something to say, but this one does not. The production credits across the album read like a LinkedIn network, Sammy Witte and John Hill and Jason Evigan all contributing to a record that sounds expensively produced and fundamentally empty. David wrote or co-wrote all fourteen tracks, which is admirable, but the writing lacks the raw antagonism that made Måneskin's early Italian material feel like it was coming from a band that had not yet learned to behave.

The lineage here is supposed to run from Mötley Crüe through The Darkness and land somewhere near Måneskin, but what actually happened is closer to what happened when Gerard Way left My Chemical Romance and made Hesitant Alien, a solo record that proved he could write and produce but also proved that the band was what made the music matter. Måneskin worked because the four of them, Damiano David, Victoria De Angelis, Thomas Raggi, and Ethan Torchio, sounded like they were playing to each other first and the audience second. The solo projects sound like they are playing to the audience first and forgetting there is supposed to be a center.

Victoria De Angelis has material in the works but nothing released as of May 2026, which means the rhythm section of Måneskin is waiting while the guitarist makes an instrumental record and the singer chases Labrinth's production aesthetic. The band said they were influenced by Radiohead while making Rush!, experimenting with pedals and textures, but RadioheadFragmented after OK Computer and spent the next two decades proving they could reinvent themselves without losing the plot. Måneskin fragmented after one Max Martin-produced album and the solo work suggests they are more interested in proving they are serious artists than in making serious art. The momentum is gone, scattered across three projects that sound competent and feel optional.