Cardinals

Praise for Cardinals:

"Roseland is a sensational song. It combines rumbling bass, spiky post-punk, Television-like guitar, glam-rock melodrama and Euan Manning's deadpan vocals which rise to a Jarvis Cockeresque yelp. What a start."

Breaking Act, The Sunday Times

"They've only got a few (excellent) songs to their name so far... standing apart from their Irish post-punk peers while earning their admiration at the same time, they conjure a sound that nods to Eighties indie, Celtic shoegaze and goth-glam." 

Ones To Watch 2024: 10 Musicians To Watch Out For, The Independent

"It looks like another music giant could be about to step out of Ireland."

DIY

"On their debut single, Cardinals offered the most fascinating of sonic prospects – brooding indie mixed with intense shoegaze and subtle shades of their Irish folk beginnings. The result is a thing of curious brilliance and one that has led them to secure fans in high places: Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten recently described the Cork group as “one of my favourite new bands”. High praise indeed."

Ones To Watch in 2024, Rolling Stone UK

"Reminiscent of ‘Fables…’ era R.E.M. in places, it adds some folksy elements – the slight swing in the rhythm, the accordion notes – to the mixture. Open and organic, Cardinals seem confident enough to let their music breathe. A sign, perhaps, of the precocity of their live shows, or the naivety of youth."

CLASH

"A by turns raucous and tearfully romantic tune that sways and rouses itself like The Pogues, Echo And The Bunnymen and The Waterboys out on the tiles together. Plus, the chorus bears a passing resemblance to Billy Joel’s Piano Man which I am very much on board with. It’s so good that I’m popping it right up top. Sorry to all you other songs down there."

Recommender, The New Cue

Following their debut single, "Roseland", on So Young Records, and its recently released follow-up "Unreal", the Irish indie-rock group Cardinals return today to share the announcement of their much-anticipated debut EP Cardinals. With this news comes more new music, this time in the form of the brooding, widescreen "If I Could Make You Care" and its accompanying video.

Speaking on the track, front man Euan Manning had the following to say about its themes:

"There’s not much to say about the lyrics of the song past its title which was stolen from Frank Sinatra’s ‘I Could Make You Care’. It was co-written between myself and Oskar and we worked away at it quietly until it became something special between us. The arrangement with the band brought the drama and scale, it grew into something bigger than we expected. It was a great relief to write the song, like we had come to the end of some part of our lives."

More on the EP itself: "It’s a collection of songs that were written when we were living and playing in Cork City. It’s pop music at its core, personal, youthful, and, if you can see past the chaos and noise it’s extremely warm. There’s a narrative if you’ve got the heart to look for it. It’s our first EP and we’re looking forward to it being out there for everyone to hear."

The EP will be released on limited edition 12" Cream vinyl.

In addition, there will be a Rough Trade exclusive edition which will include both the vinyl and a lyric booklet.

Following a filmed performance for Other Voices in their homeland, and the enviable support of Fontaines D.C.'s Grian Chatten, who called them "one of my favourite new bands" during an interview with BBC Radio 1, the band will perform at this year's The Great Escape alongside a first headline tour of the UK & Ireland in May.

More information on Cardinals:

Starting as a light-hearted idea between two sixteen-year-olds in a sleepy fishing town on the southern coast of Ireland, a whole joke-taken-to-heart later and their difference is marked by an early immersion in Cork’s live music scene, "we were into what we were hearing but knew we could never be part of it, we wanted to juxtapose ourselves," says front man Euan Manning, "not for the sake of doing something different but because we have pop-leaning influences and didn’t want to shy away from that." Now barely twenty, the six-piece are next in an Irish line changing the sound of alternative music. 

Perpetually keeping outside of their comfort zone, their sound has echoes of Big Music, of the effervescence of 80s indie, conjuring up an eclectic, gothic amalgam of shoegaze, Irish trad folk and alternative music for an ambitious sound that has already carved them out as a marked side-step to the recent bands who've broken through around them.

The six songs of the "Cardinals" EP were recorded with Richie Kennedy (U2, Interpol).