Cookie's Records

As the rich, husky and soulful vocals of Jules Manning waft through your ears, the tunes latch onto your psyche like some kind of brain-limpet and the riff-soaked arrangements ensure that these songs will refuse to leave, replaying in your consciousness over and over again, starving you of sleep and distracting you from work, turning you into a bug-eyed, sleep-starved gibbering psychotic. You'll be constantly and uncontrollably humming the chorus to "Katy", "Sorry", "29 Years" or any of the other ear-worms on her debut album, to the intense annoyance of friends, family and those around you...

...But you'll be past caring - you're a Jules Manning addict at this stage, and you'll be spending every spare minute hooked up to your iPod like some crazed muso junkie, or logging onto Myspace when you should be working, hunting for new material or just replaying the familiar stuff Over and Over and Over again til the men in white coats drag you from your cubicle, kicking and screaming as they cart you off to the sanitorium. But I digress...

Unashamedly mainstream, Jules' debut album encompasses a broad church of influences from the classic soul stylings of "Sorry" and "Always Dry" featuring rich string sections, via the mad retro-funk of "Stalker", the intimate balladry of "Siren" and the Pink Floyd-ish "3 Days" to the hard guitar-driven and riff-mungous "Welcome to the Freak Show".