Universal Soldier

Excerpt from The NME:

"[...] The new release acts as a follow-up to and was inspired by the landmark 1995 'Help' record for War Child. Produced and stewarded by James Ford, 'Help(2)' was recorded through "a close collaboration with Abbey Road Studios" mostly during one week in November 2025. "War Child approached me about doing a follow-up to 'Help' before I got sick at the end of 2024," Ford told NME. “The 30-year anniversary was looming. I've always been a fan of theirs, and I was a huge fan of the first record. It was a real cultural moment when it came out so I was excited to help them put out another one."

[...]

James Ford: "I've worked with Depeche, and Martin [Gore] has always had his eye on what's going on in the world politically. I approached them quite early on but their process is often quite painfully slow, so I wasn't expecting anything to come of it for a while. Then, weirdly, it was probably one of the first tracks that got delivered once Martin had found the track to cover. I love it when people really flip a cover version to make it feel like their own track. He sent me something within a couple of weeks, well before the Abbey Road sessions, so we had that early doors. I think it's a really interesting version. They have a pretty regular three or four-year cycle, so I'm pretty sure Martin is writing. Whether or not that materialises sooner rather than later, who knows?"

Martin and Dave said in an Instagram video for War Child Records:

Martin: "I started to just work on the music and got it to a certain point. And when it was kind of a place where it was good to put vocals on, I sent it to Dave."

Dave: "Martin had worked up some music that I found really quite driving. I felt like I had to sing a song in a very sort of different way to what I'd been listening to. So I would go into my little studio in New York and work with an engineer who would record me and then it goes back like that. So we wasn't actually in the same room together at all."