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...