When the lily of the valley begins to bloom, it’s one of many surest indicators of the top of the harshness of winter. In Victorian-era floriography, the perennial flower—native throughout the Northern Hemisphere—symbolized a return to happiness. Because the land thaws, a cascade of bell-shaped buds and candy scents spring forth, a herald of hotter months and higher occasions to return.
This sense of renewal and rebirth was clearly on the thoughts of Will Kennedy when he was engaged on Lily of the Valley, his new delicate lo-fi indie rock album as 22° Halo. Written whereas grappling with the realities of his spouse and collaborator Kate Schneider’s analysis with mind most cancers, the album appears to be like intensely on the shared grief and nervousness of a interval rife with physician’s visits and uncertainty. Nonetheless, making the document, he wrote on Instagram shortly after its launch, was a balm when issues had been at their hardest. “It’s helped me maintain onto hope when Kate will get MRI scans each two months to see if her most cancers has come again,” he mentioned.
Kennedy writes unsparingly in regards to the heaviness of their circumstances. “Cobwebs,” a quick tune towards the album’s finish, is its glowing emotional core. In a fragile low vary, Kennedy sings imagistically in regards to the weeks following Kate’s analysis. He remembers feeling the carbonation of a Weight loss plan Coke catch in his throat as he consults with a health care provider, awaiting check outcomes. He remembers seeing Kate gently console her mom as she heads towards surgical procedure. Every lyric feels wealthy and intimate in a approach that remembers Phil Elverum’s or Emily Sprague of Florist’s eager eyes for rigorously chosen particulars. However whilst he remembers these tough reminiscences, he by no means seems overwhelmed with maudlin emotion. The refrain of “Cobwebs” swells towards insistent percussion and prickly suggestions as Kennedy and Schneider sing collectively about clinging onto the sensation that they’ll make it via: “I’m attempting to imagine that you simply’re good.”
This bittersweet optimism is the defining character of Lily of the Valley. Even when, as on the gently lilting “Ivy,” he remembers the gravity of what they’re going via collectively—“For a second or an hour,” he sings. “I’m reminded you won’t make it”—he nonetheless finds magnificence on this planet round him. “CVS on a Stroll,” sung in a near-whisper over twinkling guitar chimes, captures the depth of the turmoil and serenity they discover amid it. As Kennedy presents assurances that “the hair will develop again,” they take consolation within the pleasure of a stroll to the pharmacy—such a journey isn’t with out its struggles, however there’s peace in placing one foot in entrance of the opposite.
