War Child's Heroes charity comp is a covers collection on which veteran bands nominated artists from a younger generation to take a stab at one of their classic cuts (yesterday there was Lily Allen's take on the Clash). There are a few of no-brainers included in the set (see the Hold Steady doing Springsteen's "Atlantic City") but there is something relatively inspired in New Order's appointing of Hot Chip to do Joy Division's eternal "Transmission", instead of something more obvious like "Bizarre Love Triangle" or "Temptation". War Child's description of "Transmission" quotes N.O.'s Bernard Sumner as saying, "Ian [Curtis] used to play Kraftwerk records to us, saying 'listen to this, this is something new, something fantastic.' Maybe he knew and maybe he was showing us the way." It's pretty clear that Hot Chip got the message, as the band trades the original's anthemic mania for abridged krautrock, sounding a lot like the aliens from Close Encounters jamming on "Us vs Them". It's an appealing cosmic jam that also leaves one wondering how "Temptation" might have worked out.[from Heroes; due 02/16/09 in the UK on Parlophone and 02/24/09 in the U.S. on Astralwerks]