For those unaware, The Kennedys are set to release Headwinds, their first album of newly minted, original songs in five years.

Songwriting duo Peter and Maura Kennedy make a strong return to the studio and stage after three years of weekly live-streamed, lockdown-era concerts. They took the opportunity to explore classic songwriting in depth, performing over a thousand songs during the pandemic.

That vast overview strengthened and refined their own writing and laid the foundation for this new collection of original, socially conscious songs.

After such a deep dive into American roots music, we felt like we had a new set of writing tools, says Maura. We were ready to create this body of work, and there’s just so much to write about. During our five-year hiatus from writing and recording, America changed in massive ways, divisive ways that have shaken our whole foundation.

In addition to singing and writing, Pete and Maura are multi-instrumentalists. The 13 songs are cast in a soundscape that draws the classic canon of American roots, in keeping with the theme of getting back home as a nation.

Acoustic and electric guitars, a vintage steel guitar, a gospel-inflected piano/organ mix, and even a slide ukulele all add colors to a song bag of sounds that have drawn us together during hard times. Pete and Maura even believe that those sounds still have the power to pull us through again.

1. New Set of Wheels
2. Late September Breeze
3. Silence Is A Warning
4. Headwinds
5. The Sky Doesn’t Look Right
6. The Boy From The East River Shore
7. Little Green Bottles
8. The Woods and The Wild
9. Tangerine
10. Sacramento
11. Yolanda
12. Donna
13. Waging Peace

This beautifully sculpted new recording opens on the pulsing New Set of Wheels and the late evening, porch swinging yearn within Late September Breeze and then brings us the harmonious Silence Is A Warning, the simply gorgeous Headwinds, and then we get the electrified The Sky Doesn’t Look Right, the sumptious ’60s hipsway of The Boy From The East River Shore, and the fiddle-tastic Little Green Bottles.

Along next on this wholly impassioned album is the textured, ’60s-hued The Woods and The Wild and the gently rambunctious Tangerine, and they are in turn backed by the foot-tapper Sacramento, the album rounding out on the opulent Yolanda, the veritably shimmering Donna, coming to a close on the lustrously stirring Waging Peace.

The Kennedys - Headwinds [Official Music Video]

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