When the lily of the valley begins to bloom, it is one of the surest signs of the end of winter's harshness. In Victorian-era floriculture, the perennial flower—native throughout the northern hemisphere—symbolized a return to happiness. As the earth thaws, a cascade of bell-shaped buds and sweet scents burst forth, a harbinger of warmer months and better seasons.
This feeling of renewal and rebirth was clearly on Will Kennedy's mind when he was working on Lily of the Valleyhis new sensitive lo-fi indie rock album as 22° Halo. Written while dealing with the reality of his wife and partner Kate Schneider's diagnosis with brain cancer, the album poignantly examines the shared grief and stress of a time full of doctor visits and uncertainty. However, making the record, he wrote on Instagram shortly after its release, was a balm when things were at their worst. “It's helped keep me hopeful when Kate has MRIs every two months to see if her cancer has come back,” he said.
Kennedy writes unflinchingly of the gravity of their circumstances. “Cobwebs,” a short song toward the end of the album, is its glowing emotional core. In a fragile low range, Kennedy sings imaginatively about the weeks following Kate's diagnosis. He remembers feeling the carbonation of a Diet Coke catch in his throat as he consults with a doctor, awaiting test results. She remembers seeing Kate gently comforting her mother as she headed into the operating room. Each verse feels rich and intimate in a way that calls to mind Phil Elverum or The Florist's Emily Sprague's keen eyes for carefully chosen details. But even as he reminisces about these difficult memories, he never appears overcome with genuine emotion. The chorus of “Cobwebs” swells toward insistent percussion and barbed commentary as Kennedy and Snyder sing together to cling to the feeling that they're going to make it: “I'm trying to believe that you're good.”
This bittersweet optimism is his defining character Lily of the Valley. Even when, as on the softly lit “Ivy,” she remembers the gravity of what they've been through together — “For a second or an hour,” she sings. “I'm reminded that you might not make it”—he still finds beauty in the world around him. “CVS on a Walk,” sung almost in a whisper over shimmering guitar sounds, captures the intensity of the turmoil and calm they find within it. As Kennedy offers reassurances that “the hair will grow back,” they are comforted by the pleasure of a trip to the drugstore — such a trip is not without effort, but there is peace in putting one foot in front of the other.
