Ireland’s new cardinal talks faith, family and the scars of violence in Britain

timeirish rock band cardinals When the band played London’s Moth Club last year, frontman Euan Manning was about to launch into their song “The Burning of Cork” when he commented on the portrait of Winston Churchill hanging backstage, as well as a collection of British Army memorabilia in the venue. “Some people in the crowd were like, ‘Ouch!'” groaned his brother, accordionist Finn. “Poor English boy,” whispered Euan. Talk about a room that doesn’t read.

Awkward moments aside, the Cardinals are enjoying their place at the forefront of Ireland’s burgeoning cultural renaissance. and Grian Chatten of Fontaine DC Amid their stellar run of titles, the band are now on the cusp of releasing their debut album, masquerade — a smart, bold record that explores themes of faith, identity, love and cruelty. “To be honest, we’d rather release fewer singles and leave more of a mystery,” Euan says dryly. “But industry also has a say.”

He first formed the Cardinals as a teenager with school friends Oscar and Aaron and his cousin Darla, while Finn was at university in Galway playing in his own team. By the time Finn came home, the Cardinals were a mature team. “I think I drank three pints and was manager for one night,” Finn recalled, causing his brother to snort. Eventually Euan approached him and asked him to write an accordion part for their early single “Roseland”. We are talking via video call; the brothers live near Kinsale Old Man in County Cork and are talking in separate rooms. They both share a dark, gruff look – Euan’s eyes are hawkish beneath bushy black eyebrows – but their conversation is warm and engaging.

Finn learned to play the accordion as a child after being sent to traditional music classes, before temporarily giving up the accordion and teaching himself guitar. When he returned, he had a newfound love for rock music, and he was determined to figure out how to transfer those sounds to instruments. You can hear it in the raucous opening of “Over at Last,” or in the wild twists and turns of “Anhedonia,” a song with a chaotic legacy. “We realized not to try and put the accordion front and center because it does have a very unique sound,” explains Finn. “I think it’s wrong to use an approach where you can ruin it and end up sounding like something you don’t want.”

They clearly had a strong vision for the band. Euan initially began the performance with a post-punk shout, but now sings in a languid, melodic downtempo that’s somewhere between Lou Reed and Michael Stipe. “It’s funny, someone said to me recently that my vocal style is either very close to folk music or very close to pop punk,” he said. “I think you can imitate for a while and try to be someone you’re not, and then by the time you finally achieve who you want to be, everything else you’ve tried before is so ridiculous. It doesn’t make any sense to you anymore.”

Euan was influenced by literature, art and history, just as he was by other musical influences. The song “St. Agnes” takes its name from the stained glass work of Irish Arts and Crafts artist Harry Clark, while his conversational tone and Chekhovian songwriting were influenced by writers such as Frank O’Connor and Kevin Barry, as well as being inspired by the films of Mike Leigh, among others. bare Or Nicolas Winding Refn’s Pusher trilogy. Their song “Anhedonia” has a whiff of Nick Cave’s murder ballad “Stagger Lee” – triggered by a violent incident Euan witnesses – with the lead singer singing from the perspective of a troubled, disillusioned narrator (“I know I’m not the only one who suffers / The suffering I’ve been through”). Perhaps less shockingly, though, he agrees: “You have to be brave enough to go that far and make it work. A lot of people could try to write something as brash and violent as ‘Stagger Lee,’ but they’d probably fail.”

Faith, adoration and guilt permeate the band’s songs like sunlight through the stained glass of “St. Agnes.” “A soul worthy of your wait/If you’re lonely, it’s my fault/You can’t bind faith/It’ll dry up like hate,” Euan’s dry voice sings on the bleak title track, on “Over at.” Last,” he asks: “Don’t you think I’m holy? / The cross hangs around my neck.” The brothers were raised Catholic, but their father stopped taking them to Mass when they were children after the Murphy Report published its findings about the sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Dublin. “It really shocked my dad,” Finn said. “He’s still angry about it, about the church’s abuse of power around the world, especially in Ireland.”

The Murphy report really shocked our dad…and he’s still angry about it

There’s a different kind of anger permeating “The Burning of Cork,” with Finn’s harsh, blaring accordion reminding Euan of the piano on The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” Initially, he worried that the song was too heavy compared to the rest of the record. “The first time we played it, I thought, ‘Turn it off,’ thinking it wouldn’t fit,” he said. “But the more we played it, the more we felt it was a compelling game.”

This is somewhat appropriate, considering that Cork’s own buildings still bear the scars of their destruction by British troops in 1920. “It’s shocking to think that this could happen to your city,” Euan said, drawing an analogy. as many Irish artists have doneregarding the situation in Gaza. Maybe that explains the song’s ambiguity: “We get the emotion/When you build and burn a city/Again, you pretend it’s all her/It hurts, but you’ve learned.” It leaves a lasting impression. The Cardinal knows how to leave his mark.

The Cardinals’ debut album, Masquerade, will be released on February 13th. The band will tour the UK and Ireland from March 5th.