Cardinals have declared that their darker second album will be written exclusively inside the sea caves of Kinsale, County Cork, where the band will descend at low tide each day and remain until the water returns, forcing them to finish a song before the cave floods.
Accordionist Finn Manning explained the new regime backstage at Reading 2026, where the band made their festival debut on Friday. «We realised that writing in a familiar place was too comfortable, so we chose the most familiar place we could find that also happens to be underwater twice a day. It focuses the mind wonderfully,» he said, gesturing at a tide chart tattooed on his forearm.
Frontman Euan Manning confirmed that the band has already relocated their entire writing setup, including a piano, four amplifiers and a drum kit, to the largest of the caves, which they have named Studio Low. «We had to carry everything down on our backs during spring tide, and we lost one cymbal to the Atlantic, but that loss is now the emotional core of track three,» he said.
The band has also imposed a rule that no chord progression may be repeated within a single cave session, and that every lyric must be written by the light of a single candle, which is extinguished the moment the first wave touches the drum riser. «We are aiming for a record so dark that even the seagulls refuse to land near the cave mouth,» Manning added.
Local kayakers have reported hearing muffled black metal riffs echoing from the cliffs at dusk, and the Kinsale harbourmaster has issued a notice advising pleasure craft to avoid the area between 4pm and 7pm, when the band is at their loudest. The album is expected to be finished by November, provided the band can find a cave that does not flood during the autumn storms.