{"id":427659,"date":"2025-09-16T01:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T01:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/427659\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T01:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T01:20:12","slug":"cardinals-announce-long-awaited-debut-album-masquerade-with-vulnerable-title-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/427659\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals announce long-awaited debut album &#8216;Masquerade&#8217; with vulnerable title track"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/cardinals\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Cardinals<\/a> have announced their debut album \u2018Masquerade\u2019 and shared its vulnerable title track \u2013\u00a0listen here.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"post-content-read-more\">\n<li data-leveltext=\"\uf0b7\" data-font=\"Symbol\" data-listid=\"1260\" data-list-defn-props=\"{&quot;335552541&quot;:1,&quot;335559683&quot;:0,&quot;335559684&quot;:-2,&quot;335559685&quot;:720,&quot;335559991&quot;:360,&quot;469769226&quot;:&quot;Symbol&quot;,&quot;469769242&quot;:[8226],&quot;469777803&quot;:&quot;left&quot;,&quot;469777804&quot;:&quot;\uf0b7&quot;,&quot;469777815&quot;:&quot;hybridMultilevel&quot;}\" aria-setsize=\"-1\"><b>Read More:<\/b>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/features\/music-interviews\/cardinals-cork-band-roseland-interview-radar-3586733\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><b>Cardinals: the Cork indie band set on writing future classics<\/b><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Cork five-piece\u2019s first LP is set to arrive on February 13 on So Young Records, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/cardinals-share-love-song-from-beyond-the-grave-big-empty-heart-3868639\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">following June\u2019s single \u2018Big Empty Heart\u2019<\/a>, the only one of the band\u2019s previous singles to make the album.<\/p>\n<p>The album, which you can <a href=\"https:\/\/cardinals.lnk.to\/Masquerade\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pre-order here<\/a>, is described as shifting from \u201cthe brittle honesty of folk to the theatrical melodrama of goth-rock\u201d throughout.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomething the record looks at is peeling back the \u2018masquerade\u2019 or the facade we all put up,\u201d said frontman Euan Manning. \u201cThe curtain is pulled and cynicism takes its place \u2013 it\u2019s really easy to be cynical and far harder to be hopeful and genuine.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve learnt this through playing and touring but you can\u2019t be a total cynic if you\u2019re making music or films or whatever it is, making art forces you to dig deeper than that protective layer. Stripping it back is painful, you can find things you\u2019re really not proud of but it also lends itself to a sort of acceptance that can\u2019t be attained if you don\u2019t allow yourself that vulnerability. A lot of the themes and ideas in the album come from that place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He described the tender \u2018Masquerade\u2019 as the \u201cbroadest exploration of that\u201d, explaining: \u201cIt\u2019s definitely one of the more intimate moments on the album. The vulnerability it reveals is uncomfortable and that\u2019s where we wanted to be when we were writing the songs on the record.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Masquerade\u2019 will be released on all physical formats, as well as a Rough Trade exclusive Galaxy vinyl. Cassettes will be available exclusively via the band\u2019s store.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3892737\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Cardinals-MasqueradeAlbum1400-9900000000079e3c.jpg\" alt=\"Cardinals' 'Masquerade' album artwork\" width=\"900\" height=\"900\"  \/>Cardinals\u2019 \u2018Masquerade\u2019 album artwork. CREDIT: Press<\/p>\n<p><b>The \u2018Masquerade\u2019 tracklist is:\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong> \u2018She Makes Me Real\u2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong style=\"font-family: Verdana, BlinkMacSystemFont, -apple-system, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;\">\u2018St. Agnes\u2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong> \u2018Masquerade\u2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong> \u2018I Like You\u2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong> \u2018Over At Last\u2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong> \u2018Anhedonia\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong> \u2018Barbed Wire\u2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong> \u2018Big Empty Heart\u2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong> \u2018The Burning Of Cork\u2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong> \u2018As I Breathe\u2019<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>After supporting the likes of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/music\/fontaines-d-c-reveal-lineup-huge-london-finsbury-park-show-blondshell-been-stellar-cardinals-3853189\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Fontaines D.C.<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/wunderhorse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wunderhorse<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/the-pogues\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Pogues<\/a> over the last couple of months, Cardinals will be headlining the So Young tour with M\u00ean An Tol and Pebbledash later this month. They\u2019re then set to head off on a European headline tour in November.<\/p>\n<p>NME named Cardinals in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/lists\/nme-100\/the-nme-100-essential-emerging-artists-for-2025-3834328\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NME 100<\/a> list of essential emerging artists for 2025, writing: \u201cTake <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/artists\/the-strokes\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Strokes<\/a>\u2019 knack for a laissez-faire indie hook, a little bit of honey-drizzled shoegaze, some new wave grace, a whole lot of Irish spirit and chuck in an accordion for good measure and you\u2019ve got the punky sun-kissed romance of this Cork five-piece: the Class Of 2025\u2019s \u2018most likely to do a Fontaines and get massive\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, Manning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/features\/music-interviews\/cardinals-cork-band-roseland-interview-radar-3586733\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">told NME that he wanted the band to make a \u201cclassic Cork album\u201d<\/a>. He added: \u201cI think you want to be out of your comfort zone as much as you can. I\u2019d hate to think that we\u2019ve become lax and settled into something. It\u2019s good to have a sound, obviously, but we want to keep pushing forward. There\u2019s a whole spectrum of feeling \u2013 and I want to capture that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardinals have announced their debut album \u2018Masquerade\u2019 and shared its vulnerable title track \u2013\u00a0listen here. Read More:\u00a0Cardinals: the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,481,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-427659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-indie","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115211352777024554","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}