Australian singer/songwriter Stella Donnelly broke through to a bigger audience in 2017 on the strength of her Thrush Metal EP, a collection of plainspoken stories set to pretty folk music and wrapped up in some lovely lo-fi intimacy. Now she’s back and ready to conquer the rest of the world with her new album Beware of the Dogs, which ditches DIY hiss in favor of lush production—a move that highlights Donnelly’s considerable melodic gifts and, in turn, her blistering lyrics about all the different ways shitty dudes are shitty.

by Ben Salmon