Charli XCX, “BRAT.”

Leave it to British singer-songwriter Charli XCX to go back to her roots, while still keeping it sounding new. The British pop icon, born Charlotte Emma Aitchison, is back with her sixth studio album, BRAT, going back to the clubs at which she got her start.

On 2022’s Crash, Aitchison played with the idea of an artist selling her soul to become mainstream. BRAT presents the opposite approach. From secret DJ sets, to plastered walls popping up in hipster neighborhoods like Brooklyn and to the muddled font of the album cover, the approach speaks to underground rave culture.

It’s very true to who Charli XCX is as an artist. The album has the rawness of 2020’s How I’m Feeling Now, but with elevated production by A.G. Cook, George Daniel, EASYFUN, Cirkut, Gesaffelstein and Omer Fedi, which brings it all together. You can feel it from the get-go.

Opener “360” has a fun, confidence-boosting beat reminiscent of her sound from Pop 2, or the scrapped album called XCX World by fans, Aitchison references a variety of her internet-famous friends by name, singing “When you’re in the party bumping that beat/ 666 with a princess streak/ I’m everywhere,/ I’m so Julia!” [Fox, of course]. As an added bonus, they all appear in the video, poking fun at their celebrity.

The sonic nostalgia of How I’m Feeling Now is also presented on “Sympathy is a Knife,” about self-doubt, has a synth-heavy beat in the forefront, with Aitchison’s vocals distorted in the background. “I feel all these feelings I can’t control,” she cries out. “Club Classics,” on the other hand, is grittier with dubstep undertones, on which Charli XCX establishes herself as a dominant force in pop music as she demands, “When I go to the club/ I want to hear those club classics.” She delivers in this regard, as well as on “Mean Girls,” which sounds like DJ Guetta until a piano breaks that flow.

“I might say something stupid” takes another turn with a soft and mellow synth tone, while Aitchison’s equally soft Auto-Tuned vocals take listeners through her feeling like she can’t fully be herself, needing to wear a mask or disguise when she goes out. “I don’t know if I belong here anymore, I—” she ponders, as the song suddenly cuts off on that note, and you’re immediately taken to “Talk talk,” with a slightly more traditional pop/dance beat that has an anxious Charli XCX longing to speak with a new love interest.

The upbeat “Rewind” continues that narrative, as Aitchison sings, “Sometimes/ I just wanna rewind/ Wanna turn back time” over a tune that takes you into a trance. She recalls life before fame, body insecurity and celebrities calling paparazzi on themselves for photo ops.

“Everything is romantic” is vastly different, with a violin and harp incorporated in the intro. “Bad tattoos on leather tanned skin/ Jesus Christ on a plastic sign/ Falling in love again and again/ Riding roads in manual drive,” Aitchison raps before the tune switches to a hard Brazilian funk beat. She romanticizes the mundane, as well as the love story of her and fiancée George Daniel (producer and The 1975 drummer) as it blossoms on a trip to Europe, before the song closes with the sound of rain on a window.

The most heart-wrenching moment in the album comes on “So I,” a tribute to the late SOPHIE, a friend, frequent collaborator and mentor. SOPHIE was a pivotal founding member of the PC Music Collective alongside A.G. Cook, and the three worked together often. Alongside a piano-like synth melody, Charli references SOPHIE’s “It’s Okay to Cry,” singing, “I can cry, I can cry/ So I cry.” She sings about missing a phone call from SOPHIE that she wishes she’d answered. The heartbreak oozes out of every word.

Whether on punchy and sassy single “Von Dutch” or on more stripped-back songs like “I think about it all the time,” where Aitchison ponders on the prospect of motherhood and potentially entering a new chapter of her life, you can feel SOPHIE watching over her, guiding her and coaxing her out of her creative comfort zone, as she did in life.

This is seen on triumphant album closer “365,” a stellar remix of “360” that ends the party, at least for tonight.

Follow writer Vera Maksymiuk at Twitter.com/veramaksymiuk.