Beware of the Dogs

Wonderfully fearless from start to finish, Donnelly speaks up for those who either won’t or can’t.

Beware of the Dogs is a melodic, memorable package overflowing with promise.

Beware of the Dogs is a wonderful debut album from a luminous young talent.

The carefully composed rock here reminds us that our journeys are our own, regardless of whatever else we tack onto them. No matter how full Donnelly’s hands get with the interpersonal frustrations of day-to-day life and the wounds of the past, the world is still hers for the taking, and she makes it feel like it’s all of ours, too.

For a debut it’s a remarkably confident and assured album, while hinting at even greater things to come in future years.

Beware of the Dogs is a triumph on its own terms, going from high point to high point as she maps the pains, pleasures and anxieties of her personal patch of twentysomething bohemia.

A confident and enjoyable debut. [May 2019, p.111]

Her delicate fingerpicking and shimmering vibrato carried her across state lines, oceans, into record deals and mixing rooms. The juxtaposition is apt: Beware of the Dogs is Stella adjusting the scales, shifting seamlessly between intimate and all-encompassing.

Throughout the record, she bravely calls out incredibly important issues such as toxic masculinity and rape culture, but her music never loses its playfulness. This is an enthralling and deeply relevant debut.

What makes Beware the Dogs such a fun and engaging listen is how Donnelly expresses her opinions with such imperfect candor. There's not a second where you doubt that she's not amusing herself, relishing the creative side in her intimate space with her tongue firmly in cheek.

Regardless of tone or subject, she fills every lyric with a divine authenticity and matter-of-factness. Her vocals are delicate but always immediate, sitting somewhere between Angel Olsen’s dulcet croon and the twinkle of Sufjan Stevens. In short, Stella Donnelly has got the world in her palm, and the brain to do exactly what she wants with it.

Fierce as Donnelly’s writing can be, it’s empathetic to the core.

The resulting album is an imaginative indie-pop chronicle of millennial malaise. Throughout, Donnelly sings in a thick Perth accent, and her vocals are dotted with audible laughter, theatrical flourishes, inspired instances of talk-singing, and other oddities. It’s almost as though her stories can’t quite be contained within the limited space of the songs themselves.

Stella Donnelly has an unwavering ability to execute a subtly empowering and relevant record with derisive humour and mischievous wit.

Donnelly's unselfconscious voice recalls Kate Nash and Lily Allen, but she both angrier and less suited to straight-up pop. [Apr 2019, p.28]