- Welcome to the Madhouse, the debut from Victorian born, Byron Bay ‘discovered’ Tones & I is certainly one of the albums of all time. Released following the global success of her song Dance Monkey and The Kids Are Coming EP, largely fuelled by a tidal wave of Australian media support, Tones & I makes a decisive yet unimpressive attempt at creating an aesthetic.

On first impression, Welcome to the Madhouse isn’t far removed from her EP. Tones & I’s vocal delivery remains as aggressively nasally, even if she doesn’t fill these tracks with vocal cracks, which has been a trademark of hers in the past. Yet the memory lingers: it’s hard for her to escape the kitschiness of Dance Monkey and the impression her painfully strained vocals left.

On Fly Away, released as a single in 2020, it’s hard to listen without cringing in suspense as Tones flirts with that splinter in her voice. The impact of Dance Monkey, its unprecedented commercial success and subsequent critical failure is a point of contention on this album. In Westside Lobby Tones comments on this, “there’s no place for you in music is all I hear but my song went number one in over thirty fucking countries.” Guess I’m gonna pile on, because it’s a marvel that a lyric so strong could come across so lacking in confidence, so spiteful.

Dance Monkey isn’t even on this album, yet its presence is unbearably inescapable. Won’t Sleep is produced like a hybrid of it and Billie Eilish’s Bad Guy. The addictive, theatrical darkness and versatile sampling of Eilish is lost when Tones plays it straight. The end production is more akin to that one time 212  by Azealia Banks was disfigured in a Target commercial. On the abysmal Child’s Play, unconventional, brooding production and a more natural singing voice nearly make up for poor writing as Tones & I quotes nursery rhymes. Sadly, a beat that should flicker like the lights in the album art’s haunted house is more reminiscent of the gross excesses of Saló than the masterful chills of The Shining.

Ultimately, criticism of this album is a moot point as Tones & I herself notes: “I’m sorry if that offends you, my dear.” An attempt at giving her persona a facelift with no camp in the mix feels immediately redundant and out of touch. Welcome to the Madhouse is milquetoast music for owners of Byron Bay dreamcatchers and that one relative that still has a Pray for Paris profile pic.

- Sean Tayler.