Almost two years after the release of their album Romance, Irish rock stars Fontaines D.C. remain plenty busy. For instance, they’re all over War Child’s new benefit compilation HELP(2), which comes out today. Frontman Grian Chatten teamed up with Damon Albarn and Kae Tempest for the early single “Flags,” and the compilation also features Fontaines paying an incredibly cool tribute to their fellow Dublin great Sinéad O’Connor.
The late Sinéad O’Connor released her searing protest song “Black Boys On Mopeds” in 1990, and that song has lost absolutely none of its sting and urgency over the decades. Fontaines D.C.’s cover is faithful to O’Connor’s original, and Grian Chatten really summons gravitas for his calm, plainspoken lead vocal. The band builds on the song by building to a cathartic fuzz-noise crescendo, with stately strings swirling all around them. We just posted Olivia Rodrigo’s version of the Magnetic Fields’ “The Book Of Love,” which is excellent. But Fontaines’ version of “Black Boys On Mopeds” might still be the biggest gut-punch on that compilation. Check out the cover and the original below.
The HELP(2) compilation isn’t the only album released today that features a whole lot of Fontaines D.C. contributions. The soundtrack for the new movie Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, the spinoff from the British crime show, comes out today, as well. For that soundtrack, Grian Chatten recorded a bunch of collaborations with composers Antony Genn and Martin Slattery, including a cover of the Massive Attack classic “Angel.” Chatten also teams up with Lankum for a new version of their song “Hunting The Wren,” and his Fontaines bandmates Carlos O’Connell and Tom Coll also make contributions, along with people like Mclusky, Nick Cave, Amyl And The Sniffers’ Amy Taylor.
We’ve already posted “Puppet,” the single that Chatten recorded with Genn and Slattery, and now we can hear the whole soundtrack. Stream it below.
HELP(2) is out now on War Child Records. The Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man soundtrack is out now on Sony.
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