Various Artists - 'Help: A Day In The Life' (Independiente) Released 26/09/05

Ten years on from the seminal, original War Child album, here comes ‘Help: A Day In The Life’. The idea of getting a galaxy of contemporary musical stars to lay down a new track within the space of twenty-four hours may rouse suspicions that the resulting work would be a tad second rate. Yet, just like the original album, (and aside from all the charitable benefits) this is a stunning work that features tracks to parallel or even better many of the artists’ respective outputs.

Kicking things off, Coldplay’s driving ‘How You See The World’ sees Chris Martin deliver a powerful, spine-tingling chorus, while Razorlight’s ‘Kirby’s House’ is buoyant, melodious stuff complete with a stirring false ending – Christ, it’s enough to turn you to the ways of the tight jeaned one. Elsewhere, Radiohead’s first new material in a few years ‘I Want None Of This’ is just hauntingly beautiful and Gorrillaz take an unexpected sanguine direction with the shimmering ‘Hong Kong’. Lovely stuff. However, the best gems are found from the most unexpected areas. Hard-Fi’s ‘Please Help Me’ proves that the Staines lads are capable of much more that boisterous “I’m from the streets” chanting. Whereas Maximo Park’s ‘Wasteland’ sees Paul Smith in searing, driving form, and the Kaiser Chiefs even manage to cover the seemingly untouchable ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’ and do some justice to the original. Really we could go on.

True, there may be the odd minor glitch, Babyshambles’ ‘From Bollywood To Battersea’ especially, but this record is essential for truly boundless reasons. Without wishing to sound too clichéd, you might even change someone’s life. This clumsy Gigwise hack managed to spill chilli con carne all over our copy within minutes of purchase and we still didn’t take it back. Now surely that’s the sign of a damn fine album?