It's hard to imagine how anyone could dislike the Kennedys' music, or for that matter the Kennedys themselves (married couple Pete and Maura, whose real-life personalities I am extrapolating from their musical ones; I've never met them). It's not just the sound of the Kennedys, but it's also their brightness and energy, the sort of emotion to which only the most open-hearted artists can give voice. It's sincerity without sappiness, and they manage that even with the sort of lyric -- as in their composition "Speed of Soul" -- that could come across as self-indulgent, bubble-gum psychedelic, or new ageish, but charmingly fails on that score: "Come fly with me to the center of the Mind" (yup, with a capital M). It's surely been a while since you heard anything like that one, but no matter -- you'll be eager to board the plane as fast as your soul can clear customs.

The big, inescapable and undisguised influence at work is the sound of the mid-1960s, as you may infer from that above-quoted, backed by a bouncy folk-pop melody with which any number of smooth-harmony Age of Aquarius groups would have been entirely at ease. The Kennedys reminded us with their last Appleseed release, Songs of the Open Road (which I reviewed here on 23 September 2006), that their tastes run to the sort of fusion of rock, pop and folk that caused AM radio, circa 1965-'68, so often to be a delirious pleasure: irresistible tunes with lyrics that actually said something about topics beyond the romantic fortunes and misfortunes of teenagers. Open Road lovingly covered songs from the period along with others that, if technically produced in subsequent years and decades, could as well have been.

Their first album of original material in seven years, Better Dreams uses "dreams" not in some lazy metaphorical sense but in a more literal one; a few are based on Maura's actual dreams, including the opener, "Breathe," about the experience of being born, and "I Found a Road." In the liner notes the Kennedys relate a seemingly incredible story concerning the latter: "Maura had a dream in which a well-known performer was singing this song. When the singer hit the catchy chorus, Maura ... made her dream singer perform that section over and over until she learned the song." On waking, she sang it into a tape recorder. Not impossible; as an occasional songwriter myself, I once was handed the storyline, an unusual one, for a song -- which I eventually co-wrote with another well-known folk couple, Robin & Linda Williams, who put it on one of their albums -- in my sleep. The Kennedys don't give the unnamed "well-known performer" a co-writing credit, though.

There is also a purer folk side to the Kennedys, as in their pointed ballad "Sago Mine," about the January 2006 West Virginia mine disaster, which in a starker arrangement one could imagine sung by Hazel Dickens. In other songs, proving their folk influences are not filtered purely through pop representations, they quote both Woody Guthrie and Charlie Patton. "Give Me Back My Country" and "American Wish" recall American folk music's rich tradition of patriotic protest. The exquisite "No Mornings," rendered in an unadorned but affecting acoustic setting, boasts the sort of subtle Celtic accent that, one hopes, captures the attention and imagination of a first-rate Irish band. Looking for a good modern song, Altan?

Maura, a charismatic, accomplished singer who brings Linda Ronstadt vaguely to mind, handles the lead vocals. Her principal (though not sole) instrument is acoustic guitar, while Pete, clearly a musical wizard of some sort, takes on an array of acoustic and electric stringed instruments, plus drums and keyboards. Band members and guests provide violin and fiddle, percussion, back-up singing and other sounds. The record is smartly produced by the Kennedys themselves. Whether the result on a particular cut is spare or full, it can be counted on to satisfy in just about all the ways superior taste and execution afford satisfaction. Better Dreams closes with a strings- and sitar-driven instrumental, "Pace," calling up the deepest dream of all: peace in the world.