Album Review: Cardinals - 'Masquerade'
Since arriving with their debut single ‘Roseland’ toward the end of 2023, Irish band Cardinals have been absolutely everywhere, to the extent that it’s a wonder the Cork quintet found the time to record an album at all. They’ve certainly put the work in, with 2024’s self-titled EP seeming like a distant memory at this point, perfectly formed though it was. The outsized ambition of ‘If I Could Make You Care’ provides the blueprint for Masquerade, even in shorter form.
There’s an epic sweep to this record that tells us the band have taken off their sunny indie-pop masks to reveal something darker and every bit as gripping lurking underneath, drawn from both folk traditions and the contemporary Irish scene. These are timeworn songs of love and loss that blend fact and fiction, rooted in the city they call home, even as they seesaw between real-world hedonism on ‘Barbed Wire’ (“I can hardly breathe / Alcohol and ecstasy / And Aperol and THC / From City Hall to George’s Quay”) and non-corporeal devotion, as captured in the seasick waltz of ‘Big Empty Heart’. “My legs are blown to bits / And I always feel shit / Well, with you, I kinda feel okay” vocalist and lead guitarist Euan Manning sings, the band playing up a storm around him.
Core to their gargantuan sound—which comes with a physical heft that makes it constantly feel like there are five people in this band—is Euan’s brother Finn Manning’s accordion. He was front and centre with it on the cover for their debut EP, and makes his presence known on the ballads every bit as much as he does on songs like ‘She Makes Me Real’, a twisting opening track with a powerful double-time payoff around two minutes in, & ‘The Burning of Cork’, which brings fitting scorched-earth energy to a song that both namechecks the razing of the city by British forces in 1920 and holds a mirror to our war-torn present day. The band’s lineup is completed by cousin Darragh Manning on drums, Oskar Gudinovic on second guitar & Aaron Hurley on bass, and everyone gets the space they need to make an impact.
This is an album that makes every second count, with its front half acting as a bridge between 2024’s EP and a more downcast musical direction taken in the back half, a classic side A/side B contrast that is more fluid than that move suggests; which is to say the title track and ‘Anhedonia’ absolutely belong on the same record, the stark contrast between lighter and darker shades a key part of the listeningexperience. They go together in the same song pretty damn well, too; the juxtaposition between feather-light melody and gutting lyrics in ‘As I Breathe’ is executed masterfully, capping off a textured, accomplished and endlessly replayable record that embraces the raw and real. Cardinals are finally ready to take flight, and there’s no masking that Masquerade will go down as one of the year’s best debut albums.
Words by Gareth O'Malley
