Recommended Tracks: “Zombie Lady,” “Angel,” “Perfect Life”
Artists You Might Like: Lola Young, Alex Warren, Joe Jonas
Everything can be haunting, even if you don’t want it to be. On his debut solo album, Italian singer-songwriter Damiano David is haunted by things he cannot control — like bedtime terrors that keep you up at night as a child. The Måneskin frontman is tapping into some of his most vulnerable truths, the ones that may seem childish or easy to move on from on Funny Little Fears, allowing the singer to explore his rock side in a completely different way — one that is both heavily pop, but also shares in its vibey theatrical persona.
The album has been marred by David’s carefree pop-rock sound, and the opening track, “Voices,” is a first taste of this newfound confidence. The opener is a playful track that sees David explore a haunting past romance that has left him incapable of moving on, whether it’s moving on from a new home, a new partner or even a new life. For David, these voices represent memories that can’t go away (“Oh, these voices, they’re gonna find me wherever I go, wherever I go”). Ultimately, he’s reminded of every moment spent with his ex, and it’s near torture for him, making it impossible for him to let go. He puts his heart on the line on “Next Summer,” a song that, if you first listen to is about a childhood romance, but deals with agonizing pain in a relationship, an almost dripping sense of desperation and fear — a “drug,” as he puts it. The song tacks this immediate intensity, almost like when you’re drunk with love, yet that’s the feeling masked by all of our feelings and insecurities.
A dark romantic ballad, “Zombie Lady,” blends gothic imagery with ideas of a forever kind of love that is emotional and intense. Featuring an appearance from David’s girlfriend, fellow pop singer Dove Cameron, the song envelopes that eternal devotion that is a near definition of a love that will long surpass death: “I’m forever yours.” David continues this intensity with Suki Waterhouse on “The Bruise,” a song about someone who may not be ready, or may not want to, reciprocate feelings. That is, before he finds that he’s “Sick of Myself.”
On “Sick of Myself,” David’s vocals come front and center for a powerful piano and guitar ballad about finding comfort and salvation in someone who sits in the quiet for much of the song. His vocals end up gliding the chorus against soft rock music, while he sings, “I’m sick of myself / You’re the medicine,” saying his “blood has turned to broken glass.” A song that sees David at such a low point in the album, it embodies what it’s like to feel broken or exhausted by life — a thought that unfortunately isn’t foreign to all. But still, he manages to find strength in a loved one. Ultimately, the song is just as much about love as it is about simply surviving.
Midway through the album, David plays with several genres in deeply layered reflections of emotional relationships — jazz and, of course, tango — while still being pop-rock at its core. He finally finds his “Angel” — one with “pretty eyes,” “porcelain skin” and a “devilish grin.” For David, it’s like this woman stepped out of a dream on the jazz-heavy track, and what he’s feeling is electric and captivating. Despite this grand ideal, this woman is not your typical stereotypical angel, and is actually deeply flawed.
On “Tango,” he uses this metaphor of dance to explore themes of love, illusion and unresolved attachment (“You remind me of a dark-haired tiny dancer in the dark”). David digs deeper into this past, seeing love as something lasting and life-changing on “Tangerine” with d4vd, a song that uses David’s powerful vocals and d4vd’s alt-R&B sounds to make both artists shine.
Regardless, David is trapped beneath the bed he’s been laying for himself throughout the album. Feeling emotionless and afraid that your feelings have disappeared before your eyes, David captures what it’s like to feel like you’re at the bottom with “Born With a Broken Heart,” a song that explores the fear of not being capable or ready to move on after you get your heart broken. He constantly repeats, “Baby, you can’t fix me / I was born with a broken heart.” Stuck in a cycle, his painful honesty transcends all the repeated patterns and even though he’s trying, he can’t seem to change or connect.
David continues this reflection of crisis on “Mars,” a song that sees David face the grand desire to escape and instead, stay grounded through love, he explains that, “I don’t need to live forever / As long as I can die in your arms,” and despite everyone going to Mars — which could serve as a metaphor for moving on from heartbreak in this other-wordly, forever sense — wants to stay.
On “The First Time,” David explores how one moment of love can outshine a lifetime of escapism. Throughout the album, David is often taunted or wracked with agony by this figment of his imagination: an ideal relationship. The singer uses addiction, emotional blindness and divine encounters to say that nothing can ever match what it’s like to meet that person for the first time. He sings, “There’s nothing like the first time we met / I crashed my car, oh, baby, I was flyin’ / And I talked to God, He couldn’t get me higher.” But oftentimes, those ideals are just that — ideals, they’re not real. David feels manipulated and deluded into believing a relationship to be ideal on “Perfect Life,” which explores what like to love someone whose life appears “perfect” on the outside, except this relationship is actually built on denial, sacrifice and pretending that what the other person needs is nonexistent.
In the album’s final moments, David is ultimately at his most vulnerable — his most honest and raw, for the first time. It’s a fight for faith, truth and hope. On the Labrinth-produced “Silverlines,” David cuts himself open on the stripped-back track. Trying to reclaim peace or joy after senseless pain, he seeks emotional stability and inner solace, as he has dealt with this agony time and time again. Ultimately, hope breaks through the murky clouds, and David finds strange comfort in this inner peace on “Solitude (No One Understands Me).” It’s a quiet reflection that gives us a peek behind the glass, as David feels like he’s deeply misunderstood, whether in the music industry or his personal life (“I’ve got a funny fear of flying”). Yet, David refuses to let it define him, finding the power in self-awareness and ultimate peace in being misunderstood, despite his occasional silly fears.
Keep up with Damiano David: Instagram // X // TikTok // Website
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