2 weeks ago
9
No, it isn’t when she put out the crummy 2008 demos of her only record with Orgy Music 14, but when “Stay Away” and “Nuclear Seasons” struck people by surprise in 2011. Metallic, throat-cutting thrashes and ominous basslines dominated most of 2013’s True Romance, then seemed to taper off as years glided by. After becoming electropop’s hottest trailblazer more than a decade later, however, she looks back to where it all began by producing an accompanying album that reimagines those sounds for Emerald Fennell’s latest and most controversial yet film, Wuthering Heights. The music is dense, direful and claustrophobic in all the tasteful ways that made her one of pop’s most interesting new acts in the beginning.
Wuthering Heights the album is, according to Charli xcx herself, True Romance’s sister. Beyond their mutual soundscapes also lies the similar pulse-pounding passion propelled by superficially controlled but ultimately hedonistic love. “Every time I try talking myself backwards,” she whimpers on “Wall of Sound”, “Away from my desires, something inside stops me.” The sharp lyricism she honed on BRAT continues here: simply put lines that mostly never miss landing a blow. It fits the film’s sprawling and exhaustive fixation on agony, so much so you’ll unironically hear every single song in snippets, with or without her voice, through the 136-minute runtime. “House”, for one, soundtracks the opening sequence’s final moments, a fascinating death letter written in jolting, climactic rumbles.
Like the film, Charli xcx’s musical rendition suffers from thematic stagnation after the intriguing premise. Although she’s really not to blame, it can’t be helped that the second half feels redundant and one-dimensional due to its helpless wallow in, to borrow from anthemic sugar rush “Dying for You”, “pain and torture”. She still talks about killing each other even five tracks later on “Altars”, ruining her otherwise clever turnaround of Harry Nilsson’s famous line from “One”. To have a motif is one thing, but truly, to repeatedly hit the same level of intensity is another. The film’s problematic dryness and refusal to shed light on the all-around complexities of this toxic love are relayed here. Intentional or not, the 34-minute length is one of the project’s two saviours; any longer and tedium would be inevitable.
The other is Finn Kleane (formerly easyFun)’s opulent production. “Always Everywhere” induces dread beneath the faux-processional music in a manner that begs to be addressed but is impeded by Gareth Murphy’s incredibly restrained orchestration. The strings’ imitation of scraping clanks deliciously coalesce with the leaden bass on “Eyes of the World”, and Sky Ferreira’s chalky voice strides like their vigilant watcher. Even though nothing snaps like “House” – and some, like “Out of Myself” and “My Reminder”, verge on the more run-of-the-mill formulas – Wuthering Heights is Charli xcx’s transitional record that studies her initial sound in retrospect while searching for a new, steely and more organic one. This may be the first taste of her next artistic phase.
English (US) · 