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Harry Styles aside, the solo careers of ex-participants of TV talent show-manufactured bands rarely capture the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least a track including a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards mature mainstream-approved smooth pop-rock territory – and they typically become a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone gamely killing time prior to the unavoidable band comeback concerts.

An Idiosyncratic Path

It’s a state of affairs that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She definitely participates in engaging in the typical activities that former talent show band members are known for undertaking, among them loudly underlining that she's free from the press-managed restrictions of the manufactured pop industry – based on the audience this evening, the most popular item on the official goods stand is a handheld cooling device displaying the phrase “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from Gossip, her musical partnership with dance duo Confidence Man – but nevertheless, the music she’s opted to make is pop music with a far more fascinating style than usual.

A Superb Debut

She opened her solo account with last year’s superb her debut single Angel Of My Dreams, a highly unusual, jarring and fragmented mixture of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

As the set on her first solo tour demonstrates, not everything on her debut album her album That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it’s also standard-issue disco pop, driven by precisely the Supremes sample the name implies; the show is extended with a cover of the Madonna classic Frozen that transforms into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

Additional Fascinating Content

But there’s also more where Angel Of My Dreams came from. Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with song sections that offer a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are surrounded with cavernous echo. She dedicates the track Unconditional to her mother: it has a wonderful tune, eighties-style electronic percussion, and crashing rock guitar allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl surprisingly resurrects the musical aesthetic of early 00s electroclash, or rather the thrilling strain of early 00s pop that was heavily influenced by the electroclash genre, while Natural at Disaster begins like a keyboard-led emotional song before unexpectedly swerving into a malevolent electronic grind.

An Appealing Presence

The woman at its centre is a hugely appealing, cheerily unvarnished figure: she declares, she announces at one point, “shaking like a shitting dog”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are present in large numbers, she suggests thanking them by adding a official undergarment to the merch stand.

What Lies Ahead

It may well end the way these kind of solo careers typically finish – the hostility towards ex-group member her previous colleague Jesy Nelson expressed in Natural at Disaster resolved, a media announcement to announce that Little Mix are back – but the reality that every attendee appear knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that only came out a few weeks prior causes one to ponder. And even if it does, the final Angel Of My Dreams emphasizes that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the domain of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade performs at the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in Manchester tonight and is touring the UK through October 23rd.