It’s tough to come back from changing the game.

Alas, that was the task at hand for Charli xcx’s “Wuthering Heights,” the soundtrack album that accompanied the film of the same name.

The bar for a record of this sort is rightfully lower than for a standalone studio album — an artist needs to collaborate with significantly more people to curate both a specific style and a presence that meshes with a distinct, standalone piece of art.

And yet, because it’s Charli xcx, because of “BRAT” and its era-defining sound, “Wuthering Heights” stood to undergo far more scrutiny than your average soundtrack album. And the result? A fun yet mostly safe collection of tracks with an almost infuriatingly homogeneous feel, all nestled within an album that will quickly fade in the collective cultural consciousness.

“Wuthering Heights” can be understood through two of its songs: “House featuring John Cale” and “Seeing Things.”

The first song encapsulates all that is strong with the project — an experimental structure and an artfully overbearing presence — while the second song personifies its weaknesses — relying on an overused rhythm and lackluster melodies to fill spaces that don’t need filling. Look first at the latter.

Underlying all of “Seeing Things” is a constant, pedal-tone-like straight rhythm, with strings sounding out militaristic eighth notes, as if to force the beat into a listener’s head. It is frankly irritating. If only this song were forgetful, it would halve its sins.

But no, soon the pounding paints the background for verse vocals that scarcely relieve disappointment, seemingly refusing to use more than three out of the 12 available musical notes so graciously offered by the G key.

That might be slightly overdramatic — after all, “Seeing Things” is a run-of-the-mill, plain song, with run-of-the-mill, plain melodies, and those are a dime a dozen. But, in reaching its chorus, it reveals a more intricate problem, one that hints at a subtler flaw this album carries: It’s just too big.

At the risk of using impenetrable musical adjectives, a song is ‘big’ when it is drenched in reverb, with epic accompaniment and chorused vocals offering a feeling of wide-open space — think the climax of “Viva La Vida.”

In “Seeing Things,” this feeling is evoked via the strings extending themselves into a full orchestral sound, with Charli’s vocals doubled endlessly into a chorus reverberating alongside the atmospheric twinkle of a piano.

To be clear, this alone is not a massive problem, especially when paired with the album’s often very catchy instrumentation — it’s just a little too much, done a little too often.

The pattern is palpable — in one’s face, closeup vocals for the verse, expanding into theater-filling choirs with orchestral accompaniments through the chorus. “Dying for You,” “Always Everywhere,” “Chains of Love,” “Out of Myself,” “Eyes of the World featuring Sky Ferreira;” they all mimic this.

What may seem like a nitpicking quibble, when paired with the mild vocals, safe melodies, and static rhythms that rotate in and out of each track, does dim the listening experience.

Not that the album never shines. “House featuring John Cale,” a song that — believe it or not — features John Cale, is a piece of pure artistry that stands strong in a scarcely populated world of iconic album openers.

It is bold. It is even borderline insane.

Cale’s haunting narration, both in “I’m a prisoner / To live for eternity,” and “I think I’m gonna die in this house” gives a spine to a bone-chilling, creeping build up of music that feels as though it will tear itself apart.

“House featuring John Cale” is truly and fully unique. The unapologetic sound that won Charli tremendous critical acclaim for “BRAT” is on full display, grabbing the listener’s head with both hands and tugging them into the song’s own haunted world.

While the rest of the album can’t claim quite as much creativity, the musicianship still finds spots to shine through. “Dying for You” has a wonderfully infectious energy, and “Always Everywhere” lets Charli’s vocals soar. On the whole, the album’s choruses are incredibly catchy and they certainly hold up strong for at least a first listen.

The lyrics are another highlight, with Charli capturing the ‘tortured poet’ essence of “Wuthering Heights” without falling into the valley of melodramatic awkwardness — unlike other tortured poet-themed albums that received mass media attention in recent years. Couplets like “Black flowers burn, violet fades to grey / Still, I hear your laughter tearing through the rain” push a cohesive and beautiful narrative theme throughout.

The “Wuthering Heights” soundtrack album is a perfect example of what it means for the standards of creation to be sky high, as they currently are for Charli xcx. It certainly justifies this expectation — just listen to “House featuring John Cale,” — but it also represents the pitfalls of catering to a wide variety of demands, with unique sounds suffering from an ensemble average of tastes that push them into sameness.

Still, it’s hard to listen to “Wuthering Heights” and not be excited for Charli’s next studio work — she may not yet have changed the game again, but audiences will wait patiently until she does so once more.

—Staff writer Alessandro M. M. Drake can be reached at [email protected].