Charm

Claire Cottrill’s third album sinks deeper into a soft-rock sound as her songwriting takes on an understated new confidence.

Charm is not a dramatic shift in the manner of Clairo’s second album, 2021’s Sling. After she achieved viral fame as a teen on the strength of her sweetly lo-fi YouTube uploads, Clairo released Immunity, her impressive Rostam Batmanglij-produced debut. Then she took a left turn. She moved to upstate New York, teamed with producer Jack Antonoff, and holed up in the woods to make Sling. Where Immunity showed off Clairo’s kinship with bedroom pop darlings like Frankie Cosmos, Sling worshiped at the altar of Carole King—a pastoral, folky album that seemed entirely uninterested in chasing her past or reaching for new pop hits.

— Pitchfork