<span><span><em>- Welcome to the Madhouse, </em><span>the debut from Victorian born, Byron Bay ‘discovered’ Tones & I</span><em> </em><span>is certainly one of the albums of all time. Released following the global success of her song </span><em>Dance Monkey</em><span> and </span><em>The Kids Are Coming </em><span>EP, largely fuelled by a tidal wave of Australian media support, Tones & I makes a decisive yet unimpressive attempt at creating an aesthetic.</span></span></span>
<span><span><span>On first impression, </span><em>Welcome to the Madhouse </em><span>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 </span><em>Dance Monkey</em><span> and the impression her painfully strained vocals left. </span></span></span>
<span><span><span>On </span><em>Fly Away</em><span>, 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 </span><em>Dance Monkey</em><span>, its unprecedented commercial success and subsequent critical failure is a point of contention on this album. In </span><em>Westside Lobby</em><span> Tones comments on this, “</span><em>there’s no place for you in music is all I hear but my song went number one in over thirty fucking countries.</em><span>” 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. </span></span></span>
<span><span><em>Dance Monkey</em><span> isn’t even on this album, yet its presence is unbearably inescapable. </span><em>Won’t Sleep</em><span> is produced like a hybrid of it and </span><strong>Billie Eilish</strong><span>’s </span><em>Bad Guy</em><span>. 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 </span><em>212 </em><span> by Azealia Banks was disfigured in a Target commercial. On the abysmal </span><em>Child’s Play</em><span>, 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 </span><em>Saló </em><span>than the masterful chills of </span><em>The Shining.</em></span></span>
<span><span><span>Ultimately, criticism of this album is a moot point as Tones & I herself notes: “</span><em>I’m sorry if that offends you, my dear.</em><span>” An attempt at giving her persona a facelift with no camp in the mix feels immediately redundant and out of touch. </span><em>Welcome to the Madhouse </em><span>is milquetoast music for owners of Byron Bay dreamcatchers and that one relative that still has a </span><em>Pray for Paris</em><span> profile pic.</span></span></span>
<span><span><span>- Sean Tayler.</span></span></span>
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