LIVE REVIEW: Cardinals @ Rough Trade, Liverpool

Since we last saw Cardinals back in 2024 when they supported Been Stellar, it’s clear a lot has changed. Gone are the fresh-faced, Fred Perry-clad members of the past. Now they enter the stage – hoodies up and puffer coats still on – as a band who no longer need to question their place in the room.

The shift is subtle but clear. Where they once carried themselves as EP-era hopefuls, tonight they stand firm in the identity their debut has carved out. That confidence bleeds into the performance from the first note, and whatever softness their lilty Irish melodies suggest on record, live they land like a punch. 

The opener 'She Makes Me Real', begins the set with a heavy bass and drum combination that’s become their calling card – loud but controlled – and by the third track, the titular single from the album, they’ve stretched that self-assurance even further, the slower pace drawing everything in. 

Midway through, 'I Like You cuts' through the heaviness with something catchier than other tracks on Masquerade, yet does not promise any light relief. Deceptively simple but sharp when it counts, lines such as "Don’t change your hair for me / If you still care for me" land without irony, while the restraint to the writing makes it hit harder "I won’t write the words past the margin".

The accordion, once their offbeat flourish, now feels essential, acting as the anchor that makes their sound unmistakably theirs. It’s nostalgic without being twee, and gives the songs not only texture, but the kind of individuality that makes Cardinals feel unlike anyone else around right now.

'Barbed Wire' might be the most trademark Cardinals song on the record. It’s full of hyper-specific images "South gate with the barbed wire fences / Aperol and THC from City Hall to George’s Quay", that make their lyrics feel pulled straight from a night out rather than a notebook. It’s the specifics like these that make their writing feel lived-in rather than for show. 

They finish on ‘As I Breathe’, and it doesn’t so much explode as exhale. The song moves slowly, edging forward on lines about wanting to feel less small and out of place, truth being hard to find and living "a life inside". It’s a fitting end to a show, and record, that strips away the mask rather than hiding behind it. For all the talk of Masquerade, there’s little pretending here, and what shines through is a band more unguarded and more themselves than ever.