Charli XCX is currently in the middle of something resembling a punk-rock makeover, but the songwriter behind Icona Pop’s ubiquitous “I Love It” sounds just like her old self on a new song from The Fault in Our Stars soundtrack. “Boom Clap,” which premiered Friday, is a welcome slice of moody, warehouse synth-pop that would have been right at home on her stunning, year-old debut, True Romance, and it’s a fitting choice for the film about two terminally ill teenagers falling in love.
In the trailer for The Fault In Our Stars, an adaptation of John Green’s bestselling young-adult novel opening in June, Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) warns Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), “I’m a grenade, and one day I’m going to blow up.” With its dramatic drumbeat and pulsing keyboards, “Boom Clap” is almost as explosive.
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Write to Nolan Feeney at nolan.feeney@time.com