Stella Donnelly
Flood
SECRETLY CANADIAN
ABOVE THE CURRENT
Stella Donnelly’s more than capable of dealing with the unexpected. For one thing, her 2019 debut Beware of the Dogs took off in a way the Australian songwriter couldn’t have foreseen, bolstered by the waves made by singles like “Old Man,” “Tricks,” and the scathing “Boys Will Be Boys.” Given that it’s about three and a half years later, we may have been due for its follow-up anyway—but 2020 upended everyone’s plans, and although she’d begun work on a new record by then, it was about to take shape in a rather surprising fashion. Smash cut to Donnelly writing 43 songs in a year that forced her to move at least six times.
Tackling the album like an artist possessed, and eventually paring down the tracklist to a tight 11 songs, Donnelly also found time to get back into birdwatching, which explains the album sleeve: a sea of banded stilts and an eye-catching optical illusion. Fitting, as there’s more than meets either the eye or the ear when it comes to Flood, a remarkably cohesive listen for an album written amidst such upheaval.
It’s a markedly different side of Donnelly than listeners may be used to, with the overall lyrical arc taking a turn toward the introspective. She also dives into character writing, with lead single “Lungs” written from the perspective of a child from a family facing eviction, set to a hip-shaking disco beat courtesy of Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever’s Marcel Tussie. “We put up with your shit to keep the power on,” she sneers at the landlord of this asbestos-plagued property. “I’ve seen the way you look at my dad and mum / What more from life could you people want?” The song also introduces the piano as the defining instrument of the record, occasionally played by Donnelly herself. She reckons it’s a “very easy instrument to fuck up” in the album’s press materials, and hadn’t played it since childhood.
Every member of her band tried something new as sessions for the album became more experimental in nature. That free-flowing eagerness to try new things or reconnect with old ideas is a cornerstone of the record’s overall approach, and the results speak for themselves; “Restricted Account” is elevated by Julia Wallace’s flugelhorn on the song where the album truly sets out its stall. It’s a more insular listen than its predecessor; whether by necessity or by design—and on the unflinching penultimate track “Morning Silence,” it’s a little of both—it suits Donnelly down to the ground.
The spotlight is on Donnelly’s lyrical prowess perhaps even more so than before. She conveys devastation and loss on “Oh My My My,” while recounting an abusive relationship on “Underwater” (“They say it takes a person seven tries to leave it / I can remember at least five”) and exploring the push and pull of mental health battles on “This Week” (“I know not to get my hopes up, but I feel better”). Even then, there’s brilliance hidden in the details, like how she jumps in two bars earlier than expected on the deceptively jaunty “How Was Your Day?,” a close look at the minutiae of a crumbling relationship—she can scarcely hold herself back from giving the subject of the song both barrels.
That song’s probably the closest she gets to the sound of her debut, but here’s someone more interested in pushing herself forward as an artist. On Flood she accomplishes exactly that, with a slow-burn kind of listen on what could have been a difficult second album for a whole host of reasons. But Donnelly made the most of strained circumstances to create a record that is by turns witty, gorgeous, and devastating—well worth diving into.
