Image by: Emilyn Cardona.
Ireland’s Cardinals have returned with “Unreal”, their much-anticipated follow-up to last year’s debut single proper, “Roseland”, a song saw them heralded across press for the maturity and fully-formed nature of their sound. The 7″ vinyl, released on tastemaker label So Young, went on to hurriedly sell out within only two hours of its announce.
They have also announced a UK tour, bringing them to The Joiners, Southampton, in May.
“Unreal” acts as a direct counterpart to the broodiness of “Roseland”, displaying a youthful energy and pop sensibility at play within the group.
Front man Euan Manning had the following to say about the single: “Unreal was written in the back of a Ford Transit van that I happened to be living in at the time. It reminds me of warm days spent on the beaches at home back in Cork. I remember learning a Beach Boys song, taking one of the chords from it, and building a whole new song, this one, around it.”
“Unreal”, and “Roseland” before it, follow a self-release, “Amsterdam” and its B-side “The Brow”, uploaded early last year to Bandcamp. Fervent word of mouth spread across Ireland around these tentative releases and the enigmatic early live shows from the six-piece.
Following a filmed performance for Other Voices in their homeland, the band performed for The Great Escape’s First Fifty at the tail end of last year and will now perform at the main festival in May, with their first US performances confirmed to take place before then at SXSW.
UK tour:
May
9th Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
11th Yes (Basement), Manchester
12th McChullis, Glasgow
14th The Windmill, London
15th The Joiners, Southampton
16th The Great Escape, Brighton
24th Róisín Dubh, Galway
25th Kasbah Social Club, Limerick
26th Cyprus Avenue, Cork
- In Common is not for profit. We rely on donations from readers to keep the site running. Could you help to support us for as little as 25p a week? Please help us to carry on offering independent grass roots media. Visit: https://www.patreon.com/incommonsoton