Album Review: Various Artists, ‘HELP(2)’

HELP(2) has the return of Arctic Monkeys and Cameron Winter’s first song since the explosion of Geese. More than thirty years after the first benefit compilation from War Child UK brought together Stone Roses, Suede, Blur, and Oasis, the James Ford-produced sequel features Pulp and members of Blur alongside a string of younger bands who have outgrown their post-punk origins, from Black Country, New Road to Wet Leg. (Oasis were a last-minute addition, too, contributing a live version of ‘Acquiesce’ as a stand-alone 7” to help the charity’s cause, which is more vital than ever – even, devastatingly, than it was just a few days ago.) The 23-track album has King Krule and Olivia Rodrigo (who once covered another featured band, Fontaines D.C.), Beth Gibbons tackling Sunday Morning’ and Anna Calvi, Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell, Nilüfer Yanya, and (recent Geese opener) Dove Ellis collaborating on an original called ‘Sunday Light’. It has every reason to exist but no business weaving all these voices together so effectively. HELP(2) would be a good album just by virtue of supporting the organization’s mission of delivering aid, education, mental health support, and protection to children in conflict zones, though I probably wouldn’t be writing about it in this capacity. But there’s something all the more poignant about everyone involved caring enough to make it a great one. 

1. Arctic Monkeys, ‘Opening Night’

Is there an Alex Turner lyric that sums up Arctic Monkeys’ discography better than “Alternate realities sneak up on the sly”? It’s debatable. As the band’s first single in four years, ‘Opening Night’ is an event big enough to overshadow whatever the song had to offer. It’s strange, at this point, to get a glimpse into Turner’s surreal songwriting outside the context of a concept album, but there’s still a gravity to its dark atmosphere. If there’s truth to the rumour that it might be their last song, I can’t wait for the line “You’re a lonely little Hall of Famer” to be sung at the actual Rock Hall. 

2. Damon Albarn, Kae Tempest, and Grian Chatten, ‘Flags’

Damon Albarn, Kae Tempest, and Giant Chatten trade coming-of-age memories over an arrangement – featuring Johnny Marr, Portishead’s Adrian Utley, Ezra Collective’s Femi Koleoso, Dave Okumu, and Gorillaz bassist Seye Adele – that wonderfully cracks itself open. Tempest’s childlike naivety stands out as it meets Albarn’s predictably wistful chorus, like a pre-India visit outtake from Gorillaz’s recent The Mountain. 

3. Black Country, New Road, ‘Strangers’

It’s not hard to trace a line from ‘Besties’ to ‘Strangers’ as Black Country, New Road lean into the twee sensibilities of last year’s Forever Howlong. But it beefs itself up with a cathartic outro as the narrator finds herself on the cusp of Hollywood success, “so close to leaving my procession behind.”

4. The Last Dinner Party, ‘Let’s do it again!’

Black Country, New Road and the Last Dinner Party’s contributions make so much sense side by side (in their current iterations, I can’t imagine riding for one group but not the other), with the latter glamming it up a bit more on ‘Let’s do it again!’. Its desperate plea for reconnection is punctuated by some especially piercing language: “Crying like butter churning/ Show me your body cut like a branch/ Dead flowers/ I’ll send them to you.” 

5. Beth Gibbons, ‘Sunday Morning’

It’s easy to deliver a rote rendition of ‘Sunday Morning’ – the classic’s beautiful enough as is – but not for Beth Gibbons. The Portishead singer foregrounds its haunting nuances in a patient cover that sounds like she’s been humming it in the back of her mind most of her life, which I can relate to. Ford notably helped produce Gibbons’ 2024 solo album Lives Outgrown, which channels the same innocent maturity. 

6. Arooj Aftab and Beck, ‘Lilac Wine’ 

The album smartly spaces out its intriguing collaborations, of which ‘Lilac Wine’ is the most enchanting. Aftab and Beck’s take on Jeff Buckley’s ‘Lilac Wine’ works in part because it allows Aftab to take center stage, and her covers never disappoint. 

7. King Krule, ‘The 343 Loop’

By far the greatest oddity on the album, ‘The 343 Loop’ is also the first song on it that sounds more like a disparate outtake, a vibey instrumental in the vein of King Krule’s 2025 record A New Place 2 Drown.

8. Depeche Mode, ‘Universal Soldier’

Depeche Mode offer their take on the Highwaymen’s ‘Universal Soldier’, which might be the most chillingly pertinent cover on the album: “His orders come from far away, no more/ They come from here and there, and you and me/ And brothers, can’t you see?/ This is not the way we put an end to war.”

9. Ezra Collective and Greentea Peng, ‘Helicopters’

Dubby and hypnotic, ‘Helicopters’ wasn’t an obvious choice for a single, but perhaps it was chosen as one because it’s one of the album’s most overt protest songs. It’s also sneakily catchy, with a chorus that rises out of the smoke. 

10. Arlo Parks, ‘Nothing I Could Hide’

Arlo Parks’ honest intimacy is a constant in her music but almost startling in the context of HELP(2), which only makes it more mesmerizing. There’s a bit of thematic alignment when she sings, “When we picture our daughters/ There is nothing I could hide from them,” a poignant reminder of children’s unyielding openness upholding our own. 

11. English Teacher and Graham Coxon, ‘Parasite’

English Teacher and Blur member Graham Coxon (who plays a supporting role in several of the album’s tracks) retain the dreamy demeanor of the previous song, though singer Lily Fontaine’s more assertive vocals raise the momentum. “This occasion is crying,” she sings, tying back to the closing line on ‘Flags’: “I stitch a tear to my prayer and hold tight.”

12. beabadoobee, ‘Say Yes’

If Olivia Rodrigo can do a cover of Magnetic Fields’ 69 Love Songs (more on that later), beabadoobee certainly earns this cover of an Elliott Smith song she clearly reveres. It’s lovely. 

13. Big Thief, ‘Relive, Redie’

Big Thief have contributed to a fair share of charity compilations over the years, even releasing a benefit EP last year, so it’s no surprise they’re on here. It’s also not surprising, given their surely big vault of unreleased tracks, that ‘Relive, Redie’ is an older song dating back to 2020, though its conclusive bridge, “All I need is so simple,” could have been plucked from their most recent album. James Krivchenia and Dom Monks’ production spins out to imbue the song’s warm hues with richness.

14. Fontaines D.C., ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’

Sinéad O’Connor appeared on the original HELP album covering Bobbie Gentry’s ‘Ode to Billie Joe’, and today’s biggest Irish band carries the torch here with a doleful, stormy rendition of her song ‘Black Boys on Mopeds’. It starts off almost understated, letting the words sting – “I love my boy and that’s why I’m leaving/ I don’t want him to be aware that there’s any such thing as grieving” – before conjuring a string section that mirrors the chaos left behind. 

15. Cameron Winter, ‘Warning’ 

Though not a single, ‘Warning’ is, for a certain kind of (annoying) indie fan (me), almost as big of an event as the Arctic Monkeys single. Swinging our attention from England to Fifth Avenue, it’s a foreboding, drumless (but certainly not percusionless – 2:22 for some real kooky shit) tune that peaks with the line, “There are plenty of people that I can very easily call who can come over here within an hour/ And do the work that must be done on your heart,” rivaling his “Doctor, doctor, heal yourself.” There’s Geese, of course, but as an actual collaboration with Ford, ‘Warning’ also acts as an interesting glimpse of Winter potentially working with a bigger producer on his post-Heavy Metal solo music. It’s certainly nothing to worry about.

16. Young Fathers, ‘Don’t Fight the Young’

Ramping up the pace is a frenetic, righteous tune from Young Fathers, as much of a freakout as ‘Warning’ but less abstruse about its message. 

17. Pulp, ‘Begging for Change’

Pulp – who weren’t on the original album, but did donate the £25,000 they received for winning that year’s Mercury Music Prize to the charity – barge in with a more urgent rocker than anything on their latest album More. Damon Albarn, Chatten, Kae Tempest, and The Libertines’ Carl Barat all sing along to the chorus. 

18. Sampha, ‘Naboo’

‘Naboo’ might have fit better during the album’s hazier middle-stretch, though it might have dragged it out a bit too long. Here, it serves as a welcome breather with a pretty memorable chorus: “Do we need to have a mansion just to feel we have a home?/ Do I have to have a kingdom, just to put you on a throne?”

19. Wet Leg, ‘Obvious’

As a fan of the more intimate songs on Wet Leg’s sophomore album, moisturizer, I’m glad they dug up ‘Obvious’, which nearly made it on their debut. Aside from rendering Ford a good candidate to produce their next record, it just goes to show that sweetness has always been part of their DNA.

20. Foals, ‘When the War Is Finally Done’

Perhaps no act’s relevance benefits more from its inclusion on HELP(2) than Foals, who haven’t put out new music in a while. Their ethereal, dramatic ballad is subtly textured, setting the stage for Bat for Lashes’ contribution. 

21. Bat for Lashes, ‘Carried my girl’

Bat for Lashes’ work has been increasingly centered on motherhood, with her latest record, The Dream of Delphi, named after Natasha Khan’s daughter. ‘Carried my girl’ is a heart-wrenching elegy that finds her zooming out to wrestle with raising a child in a time when thousands die for nothing. “They’re all our babies,” delivered in Khan’s breathtaking voice, easily becomes one of the album’s most powerful refrains. 

22. Anna Calvi, Ellie Rowsell, Nilüfer Yanya, and Dove Ellis, ‘Sunday Light’

Anna Calvi brings together Nilüfer Yanya, Dove Ellis, and Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell (who’s also on the new Harry Styles album, if you can believe it) on ‘Sunday Light’, which almost sounds like an echo of ‘Sunday Morning’. Their voices blur together a little too much, until Rowsell’s stands out around the halfway point and beautifully commands the atmosphere.

23. Olivia Rodrigo, ‘Book of Love’

There’s no getting around the fact that Olivia Rodrigo is the only pop star on HELP (2), which means that Olivia Rodrigo is now on Bandcamp. But Olivia Rodrigo is not here simply to help War Child raise more money while making the album a little less tasteful. If Olivia Rodrigo was an upstart, I still can’t imagine having anything other than her cover – simple, stunning –  of the Magnetic Fields’ ‘Book of Love’ close it out. Maybe because she’s the only pop star who wouldn’t oversell it. “The book of love has music in it/ In fact, that’s where music comes from,” she sings. “Some of it’s just transcendental/ Some of it’s just really dumb.” And some of it might have a chance of changing the world, just like that.