Heavy Lifting MC5

• 1 Heavy Lifting 03:20
• 2 Barbarians at the Gate 04:18
• 3 Change, No Change 04:03
• 4 The Edge of the Switchblade 04:16
• 5 Black Boots 02:53
• 6 I Am the Fun (The Phoney) 03:35
• 7 Twenty-Five Miles 03:53
• 8 Because of Your Car 03:02
• 9 Boys Who Play with Matches 03:10
• 10 Blind Eye 03:16
• 11 Can't Be Found 03:48
• 12 Blessed Release 03:03
• 13 Hit It Hard 02:42
• Total Runtime 45:19

Info for Heavy Lifting

‘Heavy Lifting’ is the new studio album from Detroit punk rock pioneers, MC5. In a historic moment, MC5 break a 53-year silence since their last album in 1971, marking a monumental return with new, original MC5 music. The music world recently mourned the loss of MC5 founding members Wayne Kramer and Dennis ‘Machine Gun’ Thompson, the last members of the original MC5 line-up, accompanied by messages of love from the world's biggest rock stars.

In 2024, MC5's enduring influence and cultural significance will be honoured by induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. ‘Heavy Lifting’ was produced by the iconic Bob Ezrin and features an all-star cast of guest musicians including Slash, Tom Morello, William Duvall (Alice in Chains), Vernon Reid (Living Colour), Tim McIlrath (Rise Against) and many more.

“I think ‘Heavy Lifting’ is a record which certainly fits very well into the excellence of the MC5 catalogue. It does stand as a testament to a lifetime of rock and roll greatness.” – Tom Morello

MC5

MC5
was an American rock band from Lincoln Park, Michigan, formed in 1964. The original band line-up consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson. "Crystallizing the counterculture movement at its most volatile and threatening", according to AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, the MC5's far left political ties and anti-establishment lyrics and music positioned them as emerging innovators of the punk movement in the United States. Their loud, energetic style of back-to-basics rock and roll included elements of garage rock, hard rock, blues rock, and psychedelic rock.

MC5 had a promising beginning which earned them a January 1969 cover appearance in Rolling Stone and a story written by Eric Ehrmann before their debut album was released. They developed a reputation for energetic and polemical live performances, one of which was recorded as their 1969 debut album Kick Out the Jams. Their initial run was short-lived, though. In 1972, just years after their debut record, the band came to an end. MC5 was often cited as one of the most important American hard rock groups of their era. Their three albums are regarded by many as classics, and their song "Kick Out the Jams" is widely covered.

Tyner died of a heart attack in late 1991 at the age of 46. Smith also died of a heart attack, in 1994 at the age of 45. The remaining three members of the band reformed in 2003 with The Dictators' singer Handsome Dick Manitoba as its new vocalist, and this reformed line-up occasionally performed live over the next nine years until Davis died of liver failure in February 2012 at the age of 68.

This album contains no booklet.