Charli XCX’s ‘Crash’ Leaves Her Darker, Artsier Side Behind for a Pure Pop Light Show: Album Review

variety.com:

A.D. Amorosi As someone affected by chromesthesia — the involuntary ability to associate sound with its various shades — Charli XCX has forever viewed music in dramatically different colors.

Some have taken on dark, cold, experimental tones (like “Pop 2” and her lockdown project, “How I’m Feeling Now”); others have adopted warmer shades that skew decidedly toward commercial, mainstream pop (a la “Sucker” and “Charli”).With “Crash,” which she has declared is her last album for the Atlantic label, it’s abundantly clear which side of the color wheel she’s landed on for the moment: The avant-pop singer-songwriter-producer is heading face-first into rainbow’s end, with its multi-tints at their brightest and most obvious.

No more saving the more manifest and tart pop urgency for other female artists, as she has with her collaborations on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy” and Selena Gomez’s “Same Old Love.” No more “letting the good ones go,” as she sings in her lowest register through the bouncing electro of “Good Ones.”This time out, Charli XCX has kept her cannily dazzling stylings and most memorable melodies for herself and the craft of “Crash,” darting between the snowy-white likes of “Beg for You” (one of her most direct, romantic bangers) and red-hot hyperpop of “Baby,” with a stops at the cool-blue repetition on “Constant Repeat.”Art?

That difficult listening experience and icy remove she’s forged through all of her work? As she sings on the syn-drum-slapping “New Shapes” — recorded with old friends Christine and the Queens and Caroline Polachek — Charli’s letting others call that shot for now.