After a 3 year hiatus, Stella Donnelly has made a quietly triumphant return with her sophomore album Flood. Perhaps satisfied with looking out and the tackling bigger world issues, Donnelly turns inwards on Flood, examining issues closer to home and heart, navigating the intricacies of relationships, grief and family life. Freya Saulsbury Martin gives her thoughts on the project.
As the world locked down, Stella Donnelly was looking up. She developed a peaceful fascination for her surrounding natural world - most notably the bird species that populate rural New South Wales, including the Banded Stilt which features in its multitudes on the Flood album artwork. The Australian folk/pop/alt-rock songstress has made a triumphant yet unassuming return with her sophomore album Flood, after fading into deliberate obscurity, taking to revaluate both herself and her perception of her music.
Flood opens with the off-kilter beat of Lungs, more recognisable and akin to Donnelly’s 2019 debut
Beware of the Dogs, with her punchy vocals flitting back and forth like a chorus of birdsong, the first
hint of the main themes running through the album, and one of her driving influences in writing the
material for Flood. She hunkered down and became an avid bird-watcher during the pandemic, and by cultivating this passion she developed a sense of gentle observance: “I was able to lose that feeling of anyone’s reaction to me. I forgot who I was as a musician, which was a humbling experience of just being; being my small self”.
"Donnelly’s lyrics reveal nuances and ascorbic observations with every further listen, articulating the everyday in a poignant and poetic manner..."
As the world shrunk around her, Donnelly’s viewpoint was shrunk too. Flood feels as though Donnelly herself has become smaller and quieter since her debut, whilst her observations are more detailed and close-range, tackling intimacy and relationships, versus the more cynical and polemical issues of Beware of the Dogs, which addressed unwanted male attention, rape culture and the dangerous, unhealthy environment we are exist in. Oh My My My agonizingly yet beautifully details the passing of her grandmother, as she grapples to accept the loss of a clearly influential figure in her life, while the title track Flood explores the dynamics between two people in a relationship and the way they cling to one another, like a swimmer stuck in a retreating tide.
As the album unfolds, piano and brass take precedence over guitar in a shift towards sentimentality,
perhaps representative of the growth and sobering attitude Donnelly has acquired in the intervening years. Flood replaces guitar and headstrong, punchy lyrics for peaceful and level-headed vocals, melding harmonies with brass and keys to create a more measured and mature sound.
Underwater, a haunting eulogy of an abusive relationship is explored through soaring vocals which
reflect a searing pain and enduring misery. “They say it takes a person seven tries to leave it / I can
remember at least five”. Pure, raw and honest, Underwater has echoes of Boys Will Be Boys,
Donnelly’s breakout track decrying rape culture, yet is layered with an added sense of defeat and
loss, her voice wavering at times.
"Donnelly has slowed down and taken these few years away in hermitude to craft something truly thoughtful and emotionally raw, carefully constructed and perhaps muted..."
As with Donnelly’s previous record, there is often a characteristic incongruence between the tone of
her music and the content of her lyrics, often bright and playful instruments flit around sombre topics of grief, abusive relationships and indeed the dire the state of the world as it is now. How Was Your Day? is a straightforward and honest account of the mundanities and silent pain of a failing relationship, both participants slowly growing apart from one another and other willing to be the
one to break things off. Simple singsong choruses are punctuated by her deadpan spoken vocals,
alluding to the looming clouds of an impending break up: “A polite conversation about unclaimed mail /Felt like a deadly lit candle left up in a room”. Donnelly’s lyrics reveal nuances and ascorbic observations with every further listen, articulating the everyday in a poignant and poetic manner, something she has continued and refined since BOTD.
It feels as though Donnelly has slowed down and taken these few years away in hermitude to craft
something truly thoughtful and emotionally raw, carefully constructed and perhaps muted. Morning
Silence has a humble, home-recording style, where simple and pure harmonies are paired with
acoustic guitar, and is the one of the unassuming standouts of the album. The content of the lyrics is
almost paradoxical to their cheerful delivery and the light-hearted simplicity of the track, as Donnelly
asks “Is it a pipe dream to want my children / Never to wake up and hear a woman screaming”, an
unexpectedly searching track which questions if this is it? Will the world be just as disappointing to
the people to come?
Donnelly finishes the album with Cold, a track full of triumph and outrage which cheerfully ends
with the statement “I'll be complete when you're not mine”. It details the grim, and weirdly
comforting, satisfaction of realising you’re better off without someone, again with cheerful delivery
and Björk-esque cries of apparent delight (but possibly anguish too). “You are not/ big enough / for
my love” a chant that ends the final track.
A change in perspective is clear on Flood, with Donnelly approaching this second album with
slowness and a reserved and thoughtful attitude. The record is a parcel of layers and complexity,
each additional listen revealing more and more depth and features, while closer listening to the
lyrics exposes not only her trademark tongue-in-cheek humour but also the variety of tone and
instrumentation that was perhaps missing from her debut. Flood is the fruit of great deal
of introspection and a careful consideration of Donnelly’s immediate world: a poignant, and beautifully raw examination to minutiae of her everyday.
Freya Saulsbury Martin
Edited by: Caradoc Gayer
In article and cover images courtesy of Stella Donnelly via Facebook.
Comments