Mike Donehey ‘Flourish’

Mike Donehey
Flourish
(Fair Trade Services)

With Flourish, Mike Donehey has released his first solo album. Donehey is already an experienced artist, though, having fronted the band Tenth Avenue North for over twenty years. As that band’s primary songwriter, though, the music he makes under his own name isn’t all that different from the songs he previously wrote and sang with the group.

The album’s title track plays out like a Psalm, with Donehey proclaiming how he can flourish, even during difficult circumstances. With its overt keyboard part and choir-like backing vocal, this song—like many others on the album—leans closer to pop than rock & roll. Vocally, Donehey can also sometimes sound like Jon Foreman. For example, his tone especially approximates Foreman’s vocal world weariness during the quietly orchestrated “Abundance.”

Donehey’s lyrics many times strongly suggest that he has the spiritual gift of encouragement. This positive characteristic comes through loud and clear during the Gospel-ish “All Together.” On it, Donehey uses its two-word title in two different ways. First, we as Christians don’t always have to have everything all together. Next, he reminds us how we’ll only make it through this life if we live it united, all together.

Christian unity is clearly at the top of Donehey’s mind these days, as the album closes with the quiet (and very hymnlike) “Unity Hymn,” a song he co-wrote with his sister Kanene. The term ‘flourish,’ refers to growing and developing in a healthy or vigorous way, and the music on Mike Donehey’s Flourish album explains how unifying, and doing it all together, is the only way the body of Christ can flourish. All together, now!

—Dan MacIntosh

YouTube Flourish Playlist:

Spotify Flourish Playlist:

Flourish track list:
Standing At The Edge Of My World
Follow You Into The Fire
All Together
Glory I Couldn’t See
Glory Reprise
Flourish
Abundance
From The Start
Something That I Can’t Explain
Breathe In Breathe Out
Unity Hymn
Breathe In Breathe Out
Unity Hymn