Full Review

The Kennedys – Better Dreams

This is The Kennedys' first CD of all-original material in seven years, and it's an album inspired by a pair of seminars they conducted on 'using dreams to unlock your creativity' - it sounds like a loose concept album (and it is!), but above all album is 12 songs of the Kennedy's distinct guitar sound and Maura's great vocals.

Real life nightmares rush into folk history 'Sago Mine', about the January 2006 mining disaster in West Virginia, or flood the modern day where both 'Give Me Back My Country' and 'American Wish' lament the draining of civil liberties in post-9/11 America.

The dream state itself can be a lifeboat, as on the Eastern-tinged title song and 'In My Dreams', an exhausting anchor 'No Mornings', or, to mix metaphors, an exhilarating rocket ride to a metaphysical sock-hop 'Speed of Soul".

The CD concludes with 'Pacé' an ethereal, floaty near wordless hymn to the ultimate dream, peace.

'Better Dreams' shows how versatile the Kennedy's are, the usual chiming guitars mix with a more worldly sound in places to create a vibrant and unusual album, that continues their consistent output over many years.