New Release Friday: Charli xcx Builds Up 'Wuthering Heights'

CHARLI XCX: WUTHERING HEIGHTS

SCORE: 100/100

Wuthering Heights acts as the second soundtrack album penned by Aitchison, and the result is a strikingly experimental, haunting, and emotional album that feels like the perfect image shift after the long-running BRAT era - it's a newfound maturity and a dive into something much darker in sound, and the massive scale of this album is something impossible to ignore. 

Charli adapts to subgenres such as cinematic classical, art pop, and neoclassical darkwave on Wuthering Heights, and it acts as her most refined project yet, with a stunning layer of polish and romantic, cinematic sounds that are impossible to hate. Despite her adventurous career, this album acts as her most ambitious dip in sound yet, and the consistency of the album paints a hugely vivid portrait of the film accompanying it and the vision behind the album. 

It's a hugely modern showcase of film soundtrack efforts - and this album was created after Aitchison was approached to create a singular song for the upcoming film; which then turned into an entire companion album after she had felt so much inspiration towards the film and its dark, gothically cinematic style. Not unlike the film, this album is hugely experimental and contains sounds that feel as if they are drifting you away - like you are completely captivated through the directly complex soundscapes created on each and every track.

Coming out of a time of exhaustion, Wuthering Heights opened the creative doors for Aitchison, with this project being completely organic inspiration for her after feeling as if she wouldn't be able to create music anymore after BRAT and the extensive touring she did for the album. The direction for the sound of the album was incredibly clear, and it makes for one of the best projects she has ever put out - it goes without saying that pure inspiration at its most raw forms like this project makes for the best sounds, and this album hits every mark by tenfold. 

This is without a doubt Aitchison's most immersive project, and every mark is hit even harder than what was expected. The songs are hugely cinematic and atmospheric, and the worldbuilding done on this album alone is enough to sell the story of the newest film adaptation of Wuthering Heights in a more modern age than ever before.