Declan MacManus, who should know a thing or two about singer-songwriters, rates Steven Kennedy as the best thing to come out of Liverpool in the past 35 years (which, by my arithmetic, takes us back well past the likes of the Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes and plenty more). The Costello endorsement is made manifest by his appearance on the album’s best song, “Autopilot”. But “singer-songwriter” is perhaps a misleading description of Kennedy, for he eschews troubadour tendencies in favour of melodramatic Scouser indie-rock and swirling neo-psychedelia, which at various times echoes the Pale Fountains, Julian Cope and Wah! It must be something in the water.
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