Stella Donnelly- Beware of the Dogs
I’m in a bit of an awkward spot. Last time I used an album by Courtney Barnett as an example of great songwriting, but this album might be an even better one. So I’m left at a bit of a loss as to what to say about this album that I haven’t said about the last one. That being said, they are different songwriters with different strengths. Donnelly is a better singer and uses less specific details than Barnett.
That’s because Donnelly’s songs tend to be more of attacks, rivaling anything than Taylor Swift ever put out in her songwriting days. If this album has a mood, it’s bitterness, and even the love songs have a certain wide ranging effect, like a mini gun retrofitted to shoot airsoft pellets. It’s a directness that feels confrontational even if it’s tender (“I use my vibrator/ Wishing it was you”). Obviously this aggressiveness works best on tracks like, well, every song on the album that’s not a love song. So… most of them.
There’s no one target: the Australian government (“Beware of the Dogs”) , hecklers (“Tricks”) and rapists (“Boys Will Be Boys”). We need to talk about the latter because it is the best song on the album, but I realize that this might trigger some people, so if there’s even a slight possibility of that, please stop reading here.
Over the course of preparing for this review I’ve listened to “Boys Will be Boys” three times, and it has never lost it’s impact. This is not about the serial rapist, this song is addressed to the college boy that thought “she wanted it.”Donnelly asks “Would you blame your little sister/ If she cried for help?” I don’t have a little sister, but I do have two nieces and when I think of them crying for help, I get a lump in my throat and it feels like my stomach is being torn apart by a wild animal. I’m comforted by Donnelly’s final threat to the boy: “Time to pay the fucking rent.” The song also deals with the victim’s perspective, but it’s that one line that always gets me. The rest of the album is just as well written, but it doesn’t get more gut wrenching.
3/5 I can’t recommend anyone listen to “Boys Will Be Boys,” it’s just too much. I also have this paranoid fantasy of recommending the album and then a person listening to it and getting triggered. I can’t live with that. The rest of the album’s attacks are fun (“Tricks” is a great example), for the most part. “Beware of the Dogs” is the next most effecting song, but it’s a cool glass of water compared to “Boys will be Boys.” Also, “Watching Telly” is about abortion, so yet another trigger warning for that song. Please be careful, and if this sounds like too much, don’t try to overcome that discomfort to listen to the rest of the album. It’s not worth it.