Charli xcx - Wuthering Heights
Cold and haunted, ostracized yet theatrical: on Wuthering Heights, Charli xcx pivots away from the fluorescent immediacy of her club-pop comfort zone.
The Brat era has reached its logical ending, and Charli xcx — newly anointed pop’s unlikely consensus sweetheart — sounds ready to move forward rather than victory-lap. For her first major project after that breakthrough, she unveils Wuthering Heights: either a soundtrack to the film of the same name or, depending on how you file your shelves, her seventh studio album. Categorization matters less than impact: the record lands far more convincingly than anyone had reason to predict.
It opens with “House”, a clamorous, spectral strain of music recorded with John Cale of the Velvet Underground. Soaked in the aesthetic of wintry nightmares, it may be the most exploratory track of Charli’s career. The gamble pays off: few listeners expected a brash pop provocateur to stage a post-industrial epic. “House” plays like an ode to dread, a psychological thriller rendered in sound — claustrophobic, unsettling, and faintly terrifying.
The following “Wall of Sound“ swell deepens the gothic atmosphere: anxiety ceases to be an emotion and becomes a landscape — vast, suffocating, inescapable. Echoing Wuthering Heights itself, the song frames love and desire as forces that overpower the individual, rendering resistance futile and movement impossible.
One of the album’s standouts, “Dying for You”, veers in the opposite direction: a near-flawless pop composition that could easily embed itself in the upper tier of streaming playlists. Here Charli extends her fixation on longing; sifting through memory and pain, she still aches for the absent beloved. On “Always Everywhere”, her voice dissolves into reverb, giving the track an airy, almost celestial expanse. Wuthering Heights may be the most spacious, breathable entry in her discography.
“Chains of Love”, one of the key singles, mirrors Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship — damaging yet eternal. Their bond becomes a metaphor for attachment that endures suffering, while the titular “chains” suggest existential ties transcending mortality and morality alike. Even connections that feel preordained can curdle into toxicity over time.
The torment continues on “Out of Myself”, one of the album’s more pop-leaning cuts: Wuthering Heights thrives on balancing avant-garde gestures with accessible songwriting. The interlude “Open Up,” for instance, feels distant and frostbitten, like patterns etched onto a window on a winter morning. At the same time, the record nods to Charli’s debut True Romance: “Chains of Love”, “Altar”, and “My Reminder” operate in a dark-pop register, pairing distorted vocals with heavy, smoldering basslines.
One of the album’s most unexpected turns is the sudden appearance of Sky Ferreira on “Eyes of the World”. A longtime friend who releases music sparingly, Ferreira elevates the track. Though the song closely resembles “Chains of Love” and might have faltered as a solo cut, her smoky delivery acts as a hypnotic adornment — a final flourish that crystallizes the album’s concept. The closing “Funny Mouth” ends things on a strikingly dramatic note. It recalls the opener “House” with its neoclassical darkwave textures and Charli’s trembling vocal. The composition swells relentlessly, growing louder and denser before abruptly extinguishing, like a candle snuffed out in a draft.
It’s difficult to regard Wuthering Heights as a mere soundtrack: this is a record containing more than functional film accompaniment. Lyrically it demonstrates Charli’s close reading of the novel; musically it offers a broad palette of experimentation. For an artist who spent the past two years keeping bodies pinned to the dancefloor, Wuthering Heights feels like a creative victory — a deliberate step forward after universal acclaim.
8.0/10
