No Boundaries

Where there's a crisis or a human catastrophe, a charity album is never far behind, with artists, major and minor, eager to be seen to be doing something to ease the suffering of the victims. They are, at best, mixed affairs and some of us can find it hard to stomach mega-rich and often hedonistic rock stars asking us to dig into our pockets to aid whatever cause is currently nabbing the headlines

It's harder to be cynical this time around, given the sheer scale of destruction, death and human misery that has resulted from the Kosovo "crisis". As the first collective response by the international music community to the war in the Balkans the line up here is as credible as you could expect. No Boundaries features rare live and previously unreleased versions of songs from an impressive cast of first division acts including Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine, Alanis Morissette, Neil Young, Oasis, Korn, Black Sabbath, Indigo Girls, Ben Folds Five, Peter Gabriel, The Wallflowers, Sarah McLachlan, Bush, Tori Amos, Jamiroquai, Suede and the Manic Street Preachers.

Pearl Jam appear to be the driving force behind the project and for their efforts they get to have two tracks included – the opening cut (and the album's first single release) 'Last Kiss', a version of a 1964 hit by Frankie Wilson and the Cavaliers, and the more familiar 'Soldier of Love' originally a hit for Arthur Alexander. No strangers to these kinds of affairs Neil Young lets rip appropriately on 'War of Man' while Peter Gabriel's 'Fourteen Black Paintings' is also poignantly apt. Rage Against The Machine cover Springsteen’s 'Ghost of Tom Joad', Oasis offer a version of 'Take Me Away' and the Indigo Girls harmonise on 'Go'. Whether Black Sabbath's 'Psychoman', Jamiroquai's 'Wolf in Sheep's Clothing' or Korn's 'Freak On A Leash' are intended as references to President Milosevic is not clear but the underlying message is clear enough.