AA. VV.

The name “HELP” is enough on its own to evoke some weighty precedents. The mind may well jump to the Beatles, to the 1965 album and film, but the direct reference here is another one entirely: the celebrated War Child compilation released in 1995, which now finds its natural sequel in “HELP(2)”. This is a new collection of very different artists, united by a cause that has lost none of its urgency: supporting children affected by armed conflict. 
In cases like this, the risk is always twofold: on the one hand, a reflex of self-congratulation; on the other, the feel of a luxury container. This record’s merit lies in finding a balance that feels more grounded and less overstated. The reference to the 1995 project is inevitable, but it matters above all as a point of comparison: that title belongs to a precise cultural moment, to an idea of musical mobilisation that at the time felt almost natural and that today seems far rarer. That is why “HELP(2)” is interesting not only because of its cast — once again broad and prestigious — but because of the question it raises: whether a benefit compilation can still carry a full cultural and artistic meaning, beyond its symbolic value.

The importance of the operation is obvious, and it defines the context without softening the musical judgment. To separate the record from its purpose would be to misread it from the outset. And yet a music review must ultimately dwell above all on the artistic content, and what is most interesting here is that “HELP(2)” does not go out of its way to disguise its collective nature. 
Beyond stylistic differences, the collection also finds a common axis in its themes: many of the songs chosen, whether originals or reinterpretations, touch directly or indirectly on war, pain, solidarity, resilience, and social responsibility. 
Produced under the guidance of James Ford and recorded at Abbey Road Studios in November 2025, the tracklist lines up very different personalities, sounds and approaches. The discontinuity is audible, but the album allows that plurality to remain visible without forcing too many points of contact. What gives it shape is above all its overall atmosphere: the distances between one track and the next remain evident, yet the listening experience preserves a degree of continuity and a fairly clear identity. 

Within that framework, Arctic Monkeys’ “Opening Night” is much more than a marquee name. It is one of the compilation’s central pillars, both because of the band’s stature and because it marks their first new original song in four years, as well as the single chosen to lead the project. The track opens the record with elegance and restraint, never feeling like a mere showcase appearance. 
Alongside Alex Turner’s band, the group of original songs defines the record’s liveliest profile. “Flags,” entrusted to the high-profile union of Damon Albarn, Grian Chatten, and Kae Tempest, is one of the most successful collaborations here: a contained, reflective piece, tinged with melancholy and closely aligned with each artist’s temperament. “Strangers” by Black Country, New Road, meanwhile, brings into the project their distinctive way of stretching the song form, balancing fragility, collective construction, and restrained tension. Wet Leg’s “Obvious” also deserves mention: born as an outtake and long kept in the band’s live repertoire without ever making it onto record, it rests on an essential riff and an almost minimalist tone, revealing a less sharp-edged side of the Isle of Wight group. 
Among the strongest moments is “Warning” by Cameron Winter, frontman of Geese, responsible here for one of the sequence’s most intense, unsettling and compelling episodes. The song moves through hypnotic strings and builds a suspended, nocturnal, almost sinister atmosphere, while Winter’s voice adds urgency and tension, confirming the oblique and disturbing writing style to which he and his band have already accustomed listeners. 
The Last Dinner Party, with “Let’s Do It Again!”, inject their feverish theatricality into the sequence, bringing movement to a collection often drawn toward darker registers. Arlo Parks, on “Nothing I Could Hide,” moves instead in a more intimate and confessional space. Pulp, with “Begging for Change,” summon a voice that is instantly recognisable, poised between civic nerve and disenchanted lucidity, while Sampha, on “Naboo,” adds one of the most suspended and introspective moments in the tracklist. 
Then come Foals with the elegiac “When the War Is Finally Done,” Big Thief with the uneasy and intimate “Relive, Redie,” and Ezra Collective & Greentea Peng with “Helicopters,” which opens the record to a different, more combative rhythmic circulation. To these must be added the motorik urgency of Young Fathers, the wrenching spareness of Bat For Lashes, and the excellent cinematic choral quality of “Sunday Light,” presented by an ensemble made up of Anna Calvi, Dove Ellis, Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice, and Nilüfer Yanya — one of the most surprising encounters on the whole record. 

A crucial part of the album, however, lies in its covers, which in several cases end up leaving an impression even deeper than the originals. Here the project places the present in dialogue with a musical memory already charged with meaning. Grian Chatten, this time with his Fontaines D.C., takes on Sinéad O’Connor’s “Black Boys On Mopeds” with its hardness and tension fully intact. Olivia Rodrigo, with “The Book of Love,” revisits the Magnetic Fields song and places it effectively in the album’s final stretch. Depeche Mode recast Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Universal Soldier” in electro-rock form — a song later turned into a global hit by Donovan in 1965 — broadening the perspective of a collection otherwise closely tied to the urgencies of the present. Beth Gibbons, with a spectral and restrained reading of The Velvet Underground’s “Sunday Morning,” moves in the opposite direction: she narrows the frame, lowers the temperature, and delivers one of the album’s most delicate moments. 
The choice of handing “Lilac Wine” to Arooj Aftab and Beck is also a smart one: written by James Shelton and made famous above all by Nina Simone and Jeff Buckley, the song re-emerges here in an ethereal, hypnotic form, in keeping with the sense of suspension that runs through much of the record. Beabadoobee approaches Elliott Smith’s “Say Yes” with tenderness and vulnerability, while the pairing of English Teacher & Graham Coxon chooses Nick Drake’s “Parasite,” preserving the original’s oblique fragility while relaunching it through Lily Fontaine’s shape-shifting vocal performance. 

One further detail is also worth noting: on the vinyl edition, and as a ghost track on the CD, appears “Acquiesce” by Oasis, the celebrated B-side from the “What’s The Story Morning Glory?” era, which over the years became one of the band’s live cornerstones and is often cited as one of the finest B-sides of the entire Britpop period. Here the song takes on added value, marking the first physical release of a live recording taken from the Gallagher brothers’ 2025 reunion world tour, captured during the last of their seven consecutive dates at Wembley Stadium. It is far from a marginal addition: beyond its artistic and symbolic pull, the song’s core theme — solidarity and mutual support — resurfaces in full harmony with the album’s spirit. 

Taken as a whole, “HELP(2)” works precisely because it does not try to conceal its composite nature. Its length weighs on it at times, some episodes remain more in the background, and a degree of dispersion does surface. Yet the record maintains a recognisable atmosphere and brings together several moments that genuinely linger. For a compilation of this kind, that is no small thing. The value of the operation is obvious, but it is not enough on its own to explain the result: there is also real musical substance here, made up of strong songs, sharply judged performances, and a tracklist that, while never compact in any strict sense, still finds its own balance. The end result avoids the shop-window effect and leaves behind something more than the mere sum of its participants.

02/04/2026