LISTEN: Charli XCX breaks from pop with Wuthering Heights’ haunting new track “Wall of Sound”

WEB DESK: Pop innovator Charli XCX has released a new single, “Wall of Sound,” a dramatic, orchestral ballad drawn from the upcoming Wuthering Heights soundtrack. The track arrives ahead of the film and album’s joint release on February 13, marking the latest glimpse into Charli’s most cinematic project to date.

The song opens with restrained instrumentation, sparse, string-led textures that leave room for Charli’s voice to take centre stage. As the track unfolds, layered vocal takes begin to overlap, building toward an immersive crescendo that mirrors its title. The arrangement swells and contracts, ending on a haunting refrain that leans into tension, repetition and release, giving the song an abstract, film-score quality rather than a conventional pop structure.

“Wall of Sound” follows earlier soundtrack singles “Chains of Love” and “House,” the latter featuring a collaboration with John Cale. Together, the releases suggest a soundtrack that is less about chart-ready hooks and more about mood, character and atmosphere.

The album accompanies director Emerald Fennell’s forthcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights, and Charli has described the project as a sharp departure from her current life and pop persona. Writing on Substack, she characterised the soundtrack as an exploration of identity and excess, “raw, wild, sexual, gothic, British, tortured”—rooted in language and feeling rather than pop spectacle.

With “Wall of Sound,” Charli XCX continues to blur the line between pop music and cinematic composition, positioning the Wuthering Heights soundtrack as a cohesive artistic statement rather than a collection of standalone songs. As anticipation builds for the February release, the track offers a clear signal that this era is about immersion, drama and emotional scale.