Album Review: Charli XCX – Wuthering Heights
3 min read
At this point in her career, Charli XCX needs less of an introduction and more of a retrospective. Before embarking on soundtracks and acting, Charli run the gamut from raves around Cambridge to writing smash hits. She helped define the Hyper Pop sub-genre, working with visionary producers and performers like A. G. Cook, SOPHIE, and Caroline Polachek on PC Music, and then reentered the mainstream with Charli and Crash before dominating with Brat. Now, at the height of her power, she’s blessed listeners with Wuthering Heights.
Opener House is a brutal and harrowing depiction of entrapment, brought to life wonderfully by Velvet Underground’s John Cale and the abrasive production. The string arrangement throughout elevates Cale’s spoken word verse, and the culmination of noisy synths and distorted vocals at the end make hair stand on end and shivers run down spines. It sets the scene for the rest of the album’s darker tone and occasionally ominous lyrical angle. Wall of Sound builds tension with its string arrangement, while Dying for You turns them into a more ridged synth sound. It turns into one of the poppiest tracks on the entire record, and is a definite highlight, one that may help more skeptical fans ease into the album.
Always Everywhere is a gorgeous, atmospheric tune that leans into the soundtrack status. Lyrically, it mirrors following track Chains of Love, the former talking about seeing the object of desire in everything while the latter lists all the horrible things the speaker would rather go through than to feel love towards them. It’s another all-out pop banger, delivering both the thematically and musically. Seeing Things touches on the same ideas and Always Everywhere, Charli singing about running after strangers while the staccato strings drive the narrative of rushing around aimlessly. Eyes of the World holds the only other named feature, that of Sky Ferreira, who delivers a fittingly raspy verse, while Funny Mouth rings of collaborator Joe Keery of DJO but concludes the album in a perfectly off-kilter way.
Wuthering Heights is a great a soundtrack as it could have possibly been and is truly the Brat departure that Charli was looking for. Long time fans will not be surprised by her shifts in sound, but even casual listeners will find splashes of pop perfection amongst the foreboding orchestral arrangements and ground-shaking electronics. As a debut soundtrack, this is a tour de force, and as a Charli XCX album, it’s another great in a long line of greats.
Writer and Musician, Ryan Bulbeck has been published with a number of online publications, and has worked with a myriad of great artists, both as a performer, and as a producer. His most recent band The 295 are still active, playing shows around the UK.
