Cardinals tell us about progress on their “darker” next album at Reading 2026

Cardinals caught up with NME backstage at Reading 2026 , where the Cork indie upstarts told us about progress on the “darker” follow-up to their acclaimed album ‘ Masquerade ‘.

Watch our full interview interview or read all about it below.

The former NME cover stars and NME 100 alumni made their Reading & Leeds debut at the southern site yesterday (Friday August 28) – a moment not lost of them having been raised on the classic Nirvana ‘Live At Reading’ album and movie.

It’s been a steady ascent for the Cork band.

This writer first saw them in a tiny Oslo basement with only a handful of people, before later seeing them smash The Lexington for a crowd of 100 before they owned a support slot at London’s Finsbury Park, playing to 40,000 people with their fellow countrymen Fontaines D.C .

Cardinals backstage at Reading 2026.

Credit: Andy Ford for NME “It’s interesting,” said accordionist Finn Manning.

“It’s definitely very different.

We’re just over from Japan where we played some very big stages.

As a band, in terms of the bands we like, the gigs we like going to, and as musicians, we love playing club gigs to a couple of hundred people in a small room.

There’s a certain intimacy about it as a punter, and as a musician there’s definitely more of a connection to the crowd.” Brother and frontman Euan Manning agreed: “We like to look at it through the lens of how music has served us.

I feel like for a lot of us, that’s more about listening to records and going to intimate shows.

We’re not regulars at festivals or big stadium shows.

Maybe there’s a slight touch of that, but I feel like we remind ourselves fairly regularly that the stuff that we like is the stuff that’s a bit more close to the ear.” He continued: “At a club show, it’s easier to tell if someone’s tearing up to a song.