More about: Stella Donnelly

When lead single and opener ‘Lungs’ begins, the overriding thought is that Stella Donnelly’s second album Flood will be something of a different beast from her first. 

On Donnelly’s 2019 debut Beware of the Dogs, the Australian singer-songwriter’s voice and guitar — and her fusion of sometimes heavy subject matter and dry humour — were front and centre. But on Flood's lead single ‘Lungs’, Donnelly deploys an indie dance bop (even if the lyrical matter of an eviction told from a child’s perspective offers a bit of mood whiplash). 

But is it representative of the rest of the album? For the most part, Donnelly swaps out her guitar for the piano – something she hadn’t done a great deal of since her childhood.

‘Lungs’ is followed by the warm indie-pop of ‘How Was Your Day?’, which is more familiar territory radio-friendly without sounding trite, and the yearning ‘Restricted Account’, a piano ballad complete with horns. “I'm taken out to sea in the flood/Swimmer looking for the line/Maybe you're my warning call/Waiting for the hand to arrive,” she sings in the chorus of the respective ‘Flood’, the second single to be released from the album. 

This album is more introspective than her debut, with Donnelly focusing on relationships, families, and the journeys on which life can take us. It feels more experimental too...not in a PC Music way or anything like that, but as if Donnelly is growing more comfortable trying new things as an artist, adopting different personas to explore different experiences too. 

At the same time, it’s an easy listen. The album culminates with ‘Morning Silence’, two minutes and ten seconds of folky guitar pop, and ‘Cold’, which is longer but equally easy on the ears: “I could be cruel/Just like you/I’m just like you,” she sings, before a chanted finish of “You are not/Big enough/For my love” while the music begins to fade.

Between both albums, and in the midst of the pandemic, Donnelly moved around a lot and wrote 43 new songs as she did so. If the remaining 32 are as good as the 11 which made the grade here, can we have a couple of EPs, please? 

Flood arrives 26 August via Secretly Canadian.

Grab your copy of the Gigwise print magazine here.

More about: Stella Donnelly