Charli XCX, Heaven - music review: Rising star proves she has got the Charli XCX factor

Having penned two major hits for other people — Fancy for Iggy Azalea and I Love It for Icona Pop — Charli XCX now seems ready to become a star in her own right.

The singer born Charlotte Aitchison is arguably as well-known for her impeccable Instagram account as she is her feisty music. Yet her route to the top was a lot grittier than for most of her pop peers. The 22-year-old singer released her first album at the age of 14 and cut her musical teeth playing at illegal warehouse raves in London.

With recent single Boom Clap — which is used in the soundtrack to the movie The Fault In Our Stars — making the Top 10 in the US, it was clear last night that Charli XCX’s sights are now set chiefly on the North American market.

She and her all-girl band performed in cheerleader outfits and on London Queen she sang: “I never thought I’d be living in the USA, doing things the American way.”

Still, the Cambridge girl seemed delighted to be finishing her tour in the capital, even dropping in a cover of Money (That’s What I Want).

Charli XCX’s music, in the middle ground between Siouxsie Sioux and Scary Spice, is a pastiche of Nineties pop — equal parts girl power and pulsing R&B.

Occasionally, as on Need Your Love, her feisty personality gets lost amid the glossy production but the guitar-led Caught In The Middle, from eagerly awaited third album Sucker, sounded destined to become a future favourite and her recent single Break The Rules sent Heaven’s male-heavy crowd delirious.

Like the best pop stars, Charli XCX treads the fine line between childish frivolity and adult sexuality, with her sugary pop songs always hiding a darker undercurrent.

It’s a heady combination and, as confetti fell from the ceiling during an encore of Boom Clap, one that seemed destined to make her a major star on both sides of the Atlantic.