What is in the water in Ireland? I’ll spare you my feeble attempts to translate “je ne sais quoi” into Gaelic [spoiler alert: it does not work], but nothing can detract from the reality that Ireland has become an uncannily fertile ground for new music in the past decade. The Big Name™ of course is Fontaines DC, but even the most cursory search will surface the likes of The Murder Capital, Sprints, and Gurriers, to name a few of a truly vast cohort. All those aforementioned are worth a listen, and so too is the subject of this piece, Cardinals – just the latest Irish upstarts to make major headway the world over on account of their songwriting and musicianship.
While Cardinals selling out the Rockwell Theatre on a Thursday might be chalked up at first to the Boston area’s indelible connection to Irishness, as a person with an applicable name and heritage, I can attest that the American idea of said Irishness is often, for better or worse, quite general. The people who’ve packed the house to witness this young band play – in darkness save for scant backlighting – are actually here as genuine early adopters of a group whose first few efforts show the talent and promise that we clued-in folk have come to recognize in this most recent generation. Just one day shy of Valentine’s this year, Cardinals released Masquerade, their first LP and the successor to a 2024 self-titled EP, and as inaugural statement-pieces go, it’s decidedly phenomenal.
One of the most immediately identifiable qualities of Cardinals’ show is the presence of the accordion. Like other bands of the generation, they’ve incorporated something unconventional as inspiration, but have come away with something that’s anything but a gimmick. It’s wielded by Finn Manning, brother of lead singer Euan. The accordion is, quite literally, another lung given to the band’s compositions – like Euan’s vocals at the core of each song, it can only give to the music by absorbing something in return, and that ebb-and-flow is felt throughout each song where the instrument appears. Its presence is not simply notable on account of novelty; it also allows Cardinals to tap into musical history, and they compose many of their songs in ¾ time with its unmistakable warble at their backs.
When the band takes the stage, it’s impossible to fully discount just how fresh-faced the members are, which renders the achievement of Masquerade all the more impressive. The album is issued by So Young Records, and at a glance, the common denominator of their roster, boasting big names on either side of the Atlantic, is quite literally that eponymous factor of youth. They’ve got Folly Group and Man/Woman/Chainsaw on the eastern edge, and back westward the budding talents of the likes of Slow Fiction and the impeccably-named Been Stellar. All – Cardinals in particular – are possessed of a certain cocktail, that of tenderness, vulnerability, and hope, that makes their music ultimately compelling.
In a title track that imbues album-opener ‘She Makes Me Real’ with new meaning, Euan rhetorically asks: “What are you waiting for?” “Love,” comes the simple answer, repeated near ‘til the end. This concept sits at the center of Masquerade, and the band lay bare all ten of its tracks throughout the night, as well as a few from their EP. Between standard and three-fourths time, the Mannings and company serve up emotional missiles; ‘I Like You’ stands apart as a statement piece. It’s the peak emotive effort from the album, and when he sings, “Don’t change your hair for me / if you still care for me,” one knows one is in for a hell of a ride. It recalls the timbre of erstwhile Black Country, New Road vocalist Isaac Wood in how something in Manning’s voice reveals a painfully autobiographical level of detail, fragments, and figures from an entanglement that left an indelible impression. The accordion gives and takes, and to actualize every note must swell and grow despite whatever is given – in this sense, it mirrors the human heart.
That said, there is variance to be found here as well. ‘Anhedonia’ delivers the comparative detachment of a murder ballad, demonstrating the band’s compositional range. While their efforts ‘til now have skewed a certain way, there remains ever the impression that there is immense breadth for Cardinals to explore. This is the feeling with which one can’t help but leave their performance, climbing up the stairwell of the Rockwell, bound for home, the Irish bar next door, elsewhere, or some combination thereof – that this is a band which will return with another tour-de-force [Gaelic translation pending], and the only question remains how big a venue might be necessary to contain them next time.
Photos and words by Collin Heroux
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