Posthumous MC5 Album ‘Heavy Lifting’ Announced, Listen To New Single
Heavy Lifting, the posthumous album from Detroit rock royalty MC5, finally has a release date. The follow-up to 1971’s classic High Time, will be released on October 18, the day before the band are inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. The first track to be taken from the album, Boys Who Play With Matches, is out now – listen below.
Heavy Lifting features guitar and vocals from the late Wayne Kramer, who co-wrote 12 of the album’s 13 songs with Oakland musician Brad Brooks. Guests on the LP include Tom Morello, Guns N’ Roses’ Slash, William DuVall, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, and the late MC5 drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson.
In March 2022, Kramer announced that Heavy Lifting was in the works, produced by Bob Ezrin, though it never materialised. Earlier this year, in the wake of Kramer’s death, Ezrin told Classic Rock that those involved in the recording, “feel a responsibility to make sure that his work is heard and he is celebrated.”
“It’s very heavy,” Ezrin continues. “It has a revolutionary message but also a good sense of humor. There’s a little bit of heavy metal. There’s quite a bit of funk. But it is a heavy record, and it’s a guitar record left, right and centre. Just a wall of guitars most of the time, and mostly driven by Wayne and his ethos. It’s a snapshot of a guitar man at the height of his powers. We all feel a responsibility to make sure that his work is heard, and he is celebrated. We poured our hearts into the project.”
In addition to the 13-track album, a 2CD/2LP version will be released including previously unreleased live recordings from the MC50 tour in 2018 celebrating the 50th anniversary of MC5’s revered 1969 debut album Kick Out The Jams. Alongside Kramer, the MC50 live band features Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, Faith No More bassist Billy Gould, and frontman Marcus Durant (Zen Guerilla) with a special guest appearance by Mark Arm (Mudhoney).
Heavy Lifting tracklisting
01. Heavy Lifting (feat. Tom Morello)
02. Barbarians At The Gate
03. Change, No Change
04. The Edge Of The Switchblade (feat. William Duvall and Slash)
05. Black Boots (feat. Tim McIIrath)
06. I Am The Fun (The Phoney)
07. Twenty-Five Miles
08. Because Of Your Car
09. Boys Who Play With Matches
10. Blind Eye (feat. Dennis Thompson)
11. Can’t Be Found (feat. Vernon Reid and Dennis Thompson)
12. Blessed Release
13. Hit It Hard (feat. Joe Berry)
Bonus disc
01. Ramblin’ Rose
02. Kick Out The Jams
03. Come Together
04. Motor City Is Burning
05. Borderline
06. Gotta Keep Movin’
07. Future/Now
08. Poison
09. Shakin’ Street
10. Sister Anne