Irish six-piece Cardinals have returned with ‘Unreal,’ a buoyant follow-up to last year’s celebrated single, ‘Roseland” a song that conjured up a gothic alchemy of shoegaze and alt music for an ambitious genre-busting soundscape. ‘Unreal‘ acts as a direct counterpart to the broodiness of ‘Roseland‘ fused with a fervent, youthful energy and clear pop sensibility at play within the group. Opening with a blast of feedback the track bounces with lush melodic ambition, soaring with glorious hazy reverb and vocal catharsis. It has all the hallmarks of an instant classic
Front man Euan Manning said, :
“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 leading Grain Chatten of Fontaines DC to name them as “one of my favourite new bands” during an interview on BBC Radio 1. Fervent word of mouth spread across Ireland around their singles and 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 next month.
Today the band have also announced their first headline tour for the UK & Ireland
Live Dates:
MARCH
8th-16th SXSW, Austin
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
Follow Cardinals here for more details.
Photo Credit Emilyn Cardona
