On her third album, Stella Donnelly offers up a meditation on heartbreak. But, while she wears her heart on her sleeve throughout her most vulnerable collection yet, ‘Love And Fortune’ struggles with inconsistent song development, where some tracks feel worryingly shallow and others as deep pools to navigate.
The opening run — Standing Ovation, Being Nice, Feel It Change, and Baths — fall into the former category. Being Nice and Baths barely breach two minutes, ending precisely when they should develop into something fresh. The following tracks make these truncated sketches look like half-finished work taking up space where fully realised compositions should stand.
The ensuing Year of Trouble, Please Everyone, and W.A.L.K., sequenced back-to-back, showcase Donnelly’s uncanny ability to transform songs into living, breathing organisms.
Year of Trouble delivers melancholic piano and sickly vocals, Donnelly's off-kilter delivery heightening disorientation, so you’re left feeling the peculiar sting of been broken up with at a wedding.
She simplifies complex feelings poetically over devastating organ-like synths: “Felt like the right idea at the time to put up a wall / the higher I climbed the taller you got stone after stone.”
Please Everyone follows with choral minimalism, field recordings of birds fluttering between verses, while its repeated refrain “you can't please everyone” lands like a gut-punch. W.A.L.K. layers subtle inflections, its rumbling percussion arriving as Donnelly reclaims her “little life.” For anyone craving Porridge Radio’s caustic intensity as they wrap-up their career, Donnelly presents a compelling alternative.
The album's latter stretch maintains this quality. Ghosts delivers vulnerability through discordant piano and lo-fi funk basslines, and Love and Fortune offers sardonic criticism of self-help culture. ‘Love and Fortune’ recovers magnificently from its early stumble, painting the heaviness of moving on with subtle brushstrokes.
Stella Donnelly Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Thu March 19 2026 - CARDIFF Clwb Ifor Bach
Sat March 21 2026 - LEEDS Wardrobe
Sun March 22 2026 - GLASGOW Mono - Kings Court
Mon March 23 2026 - MANCHESTER YES (The Pink Room)
Wed March 25 2026 - LONDON Bush Hall
Thu March 26 2026 - BRISTOL Bristol Strange Brew
Fri March 27 2026 - BRIGHTON A L P H A B E T
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