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It always amazes me when songwriters can capture life’s little miracles so effortlessly and Katie’s ability to do so often makes me well up. This is my favorite of the three (excellent) singles off her debut solo album What A Relief, what is sure to be one of the best releases of the year.
Bonus points for fiddle and Amber Bain of the Japanese House on vocals.
Sep 26, 2024
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sentiment by Claire Rousay album is a dreamy, yet haunting exploration of depression. The first track of the album ‘4pm‘ hot me hard. If you’re inclined towards getting depressed that feeling of bed rotting and failing to see the point of taking your next breath is quite painful to hear but I’m glad someone has said the quiet part allowed. Enjoyed guest vocals from Hand Habit as well. This album is melancholic without sounding self pitying. I enjoyed the hum and atmosphere Rousay has created. Can’t wait to se ever live in a few weeks in London. 8/10
May 2, 2024
22° Halo’s Lily of the Valley is a collection of songs written by Philly-based songwriter Will Kennedy during his wife Kate’s treatment for a very rare brain cancer. For full transparency, Will and Kate are close friends of mine – Kate’s treatment was a tremendous weight on my chest, and the news of her cancer going dormant was one of the high points of recent years for me. This album hit me hard as hell knowing the people behind it. But the more I listen, the more I marvel at the specificity and universality of what Will achieved here.
What makes Lily of the Valley such a remarkable album is the graceful confidence Kennedy presents these delicately intimate moments with. It’s incredibly difficult to write confident, commanding songs about such immense uncertainty. My jaw would drop at the sheer chutzpah of the recurring lead guitar on album opener “Bird Sanctuary” – it sounds like This Heat playing Thin Lizzy! And these are somehow the first notes we hear to set the stage for Kennedy’s recollections of some of the most precious, intimate moments of his relationship? It’s incredible.
This propulsive feeling sustains throughout the album. “Orioles at Dusk” is anthemic and climactic in an almost literal drive-into-the-sunset sense, and the closing, titular track could throw a crowd makes me want to beat the air with my fists. That an immense tenderness can remain at the forefront of songs with such electric energy, rather than something masked by the music itself, is a big part of what makes this album such a wonder.
I hate to use a word like “juxtaposition” but it really is this juxtaposition that got under my skin the first time I heard this album and has kept me coming back for 3-5 listens per week since then. If I heard this album without knowing the backstory, without paying attention to the lyrics or knowing Will or Kate, I would still place it as a new high point in the jangle pop canon. It’s how effortlessly Kennedy can get you to sing along with a song about the terror of watching the person you love most endure chemo that makes this a truly transcendent record.
The lyrics are bracingly beautiful and generously specific. The songs sometimes take on a stream of consciousness quality, as if Kennedy is remembering moments both painful and uplifting in the same thought and listing them out as they arrive to him. The moments where Kate accompanies him vocally are among the most moving I heard this year. Kennedy has an uncanny ability to shed off self-consciousness in his music without ever demanding the listener’s attention. He is beautifully articulating a truth too deeply, painfully human to present as anything other than that; the truth.
Dec 30, 2024
This has been one of the most formative and transformative albums to enter my little world, and it has seen me through many iterations of growth over the past 10 plus years. All of Angel’s work is stunning in its own right, and I admire her and the way she continues to experiment with her sound and new genres, but her debut album Half Way Home will forever live inside the most tender place in my heart. The control she has over her voice is mystifying; she yodels, croons, shrieks and hums. And the writing is as profound as the melodies are. I couldn’t possibly pick a favorite from the album, but some of my current favorites are Safe In the Womb, Free, and You Are Song. Bonus: This softly powerful performance Angel gave of Miranda at Grant Street Bakery in 2012.
May 4, 2025
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