Yesterday's Heroes is a project perfectly realized by Haco and Terre Thaemlitz, although it is by it's nature mediocre. The title, 1979, refers to the year we are to imagine the record came out, and on the title track (also "Yesterday's Heroes," a nod to band theme songs of the time) Haco intones "We don't want to be/Yesterday's heroes" over a scratchy "Whiter Shade of Pale" backing track. That spills into "New Wave, New Days," the band's icy call to arms. Elsewhere there are such small tributes as a Kraftwerkesque vocoder and a buried "O Superman" vocal pulse and plenty of vinyl pops. Haco and Thaemlitz have reimagined the forgotten bands of the 1980s (it sounds more like 1982 than 1979, but perhaps Yesterday's Heroes are the fantasy forgotten forebears to groups like Altered Images, Missing Persons and Human Sexual Response). They work the beat-driven electronics and cold female vocals, the sort of stuff that would become alt dance music a few years later - in fact, what might have influenced After Dinner in the early '80s. There's even an homage to their would-have-been followers Men Without Hats with a short, sparse cover of their "No Dancing." Many's the musician that goes back to their roots. In a curious way, Yesterday's Heroes became them.