Following a nearly month-long run on the road, Cork’s Cardinals return today with another highlight from their upcoming debut album, the swaggeringly melodic but darkly worded single, “Barbed Wire.” Frontman Euan Manning revealed the surprising historical and literary inspiration for the latest track to land from their record. He stated, “It’s very much inspired by the history of our city and the Gaol house that stood on the south gate bridge many years ago, lyrically I had hoped to evoke images of silhouetted city walls and security fences.” Manning also noted that Kevin Barry’s novel City of Bohane served as inspiration for a gothic re-imagining of Cork, confirming that sometimes “aesthetics can carry a song from its inception to its completion.”
“Barbed Wire,” which lands alongside a striking black and white video directed by Xander Lewis, is the fourth single taken from the band’s much-anticipated debut album, ‘Masquerade’. The ten-song collection is set to arrive on the tastemaker label So Young Records on February 13th and was recorded across the summer with producer Shrink at RAK Studios in London. ‘Masquerade’ is a record that is at once intimate and grand, fully awash with romance and intriguing flickers of holy imagery, ultimately fulfilling the immense promise the band has shown since their earliest beginnings. This is a band forged through both family and friendship—featuring brothers Euan and Finn Manning, their cousin Darragh, and former schoolmates Oskar Gudinovic and Aaron Hurley—who have already positioned themselves at the vanguard of the Irish independent rock scene.
The songs on the album are emotionally expansive, with certain tracks like “Anhedonia,” “The Burning of Cork,” and the title track, “Barbed Wire,” simmering with an undercurrent of cynical discontent, while others gleam with a bright-eyed vulnerability. The record contrasts a vivid first half with a darker second, crafting a deliberate A-side and B-side feel, a clear nod to the band’s collective love of vinyl. This clever tonal shift takes its cue from a wide variety of unexpected influences, spanning from the brittle honesty of folk music to the theatrical melodrama of goth-rock. With the release of ‘Masquerade’, Cardinals have flung off any shackles to successfully craft something entirely their own, cementing their place as a crucial new voice in rock.