CARDINALS: WELCOME TO THE MASQUERADE
Words by Grace Robins-Somerville
As the Oscar Wilde quote goes, “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” Over a century later, another Irish writer—along with his four bandmates—has decided to put this adage to the test on an album fittingly titled Masquerade. An often hedonistic, sacred and profane pseudo-spiritual romp through ten barn-burning bar band tracks, Cardinals seek out emotional truths only accessible through performance.
Crashing in with a tactical love storm of cymbals and horns, the opening track from Cardinals’ debut album gives the Irish quintet the grand entrance they deserve. Its titular line—“she makes me real”—becomes a set of arc words, reappearing on the title track two songs later. “She makes me real happy / So good, so far,” lead singer Euan Manning croons, lovingly repurposing a once-sinister sentiment. “The idea of ‘She Makes Me Real’ is pretty depraved in its nature,” he explains over Zoom, speaking remotely from his home in Cork after returning from a string of European tour dates. “The idea of ‘she makes me real happy’ is quite jovial in its language.” To make a person real—essentially, to bring them to life—is an impossibly tall order. Characteristic of a record often stretched between narrative or thematic poles, it was Manning’s instinct to use this extreme as a jumping-off point to explore its inverse, to bring the otherworldly romance of “She Makes Me Real” down to earth with Masquerade, a ballad of acceptance and interdependence. “You could write the same track ten times on a record,” he says, “but exploring a theme’s counterpoint is pretty interesting.”
This ambiguity lies at the heart of ‘Masquerade’. It’s a record that blurs the distinctions between projection and connection, revealing just how thin the line between the two can be. Often, this manifests in a gray area between admiration and jealousy, and in love songs in which it’s unclear whether the narrator wants to be with the object of their affection or resist becoming them.
“Don’t you know everyone wants to be more like you?” Manning begs at the chorus of “I Like You,” a heavy crush of drums joining the lilting accordion notes underscoring the track’s build, somewhere between a dirge and a waltz. Manning’s vocal delivery is understated in its anguish, often recalling the quiet ache of Elliott Smith, one of his musical heroes (standout track “St. Agnes” drops a “Waltz #2 (XO)” interpolation at the end of its first chorus).
“I fell in love with his songwriting very early on,” Manning shares. “His vulnerability is very admirable. I’ve found his writing and lyrics to be very open, which is something that I wanted to have as well.” He also cites Irish musical legends like Sinéad O’Connor and Shane MacGowan as inspirations, as well as the essays of Kevin Barry. Manning and his bandmates take great pride in their country’s rich artistic and political tradition—their song “The Burning of Cork” draws parallels between British colonialism of Ireland and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, continuing the legacy of Irish-Palestinian solidarity. But their kinship with Ireland’s celebrated music history isn’t without its cynicism: “Internationally, Ireland is only noticed when UK or US bands pick up an act,” Manning says. “And then—it’s happening after Fontaines DC—everybody wants a piece.”
In an age of over-explaining, Cardinals resist easy answers and over-explaining. Their debut album and what-ifs are essential to the band’s artistic DNA—“you” sung to on Masquerade could be anybody.
“We wrote the album kinda figuring ourselves out; we were around people trying to figure out their own identities,” says Manning. “I feel like that just bled into it, where that kind of struggle and push-pull of ‘What if I’m not what I think I am?’ or ‘What if I’m not what I want to be?’ It’s a cyclical process. Masquerade is a record of contradictions, a showcase of a band figuring out who they are and refusing to let anyone else decide that for them.
