Heavy Lifting – MC5 (earMUSIC)
I made an oath to not write reviews about albums that gave me the shits. But The Barman sent me a copy of “Heavy Lifting” and I gave it a go.
As far as an MC5 album goes, it's not even a good Wayne Kramer record. I hoped for more after the MC50 shows and Bob Ezrin's recent work with Alice Cooper.
I made track-by-track notes as I listened. I'll just give you my notes as written rather than an actual review. You can work it out from there.
1. Heavy Lifting (feat. Tom Morello)
Dreadful heavy metal.
2. Barbarians At The Gate
Sounds more like the 5. Crap Chorus
3. Change, No Change
Awful mid-‘70s style heavy metal funk. Better lyrics.
4. The Edge Of The Switchblade (feat. William Duvall & Slash)
More like the MC5 but "Alrights" and "Woos" everywhere. Self-referencing mythologising. Histrionic guitar solo but not in a good way.
5. Black Boots (feat. Tim McIIrath)
Thought I was listening to Deep Purple. Vocalist actually yells out “solo”.
6. I Am The Fun (The Phoney)
All I can do is wince.
7. Twenty-Five Miles
God. It's like a Bad Company outtake.
8. Because Of Your Car
Why am I listening to this macho bullshit? Should have been binned.
9. Boys Who Play With Matches
More self-referencing bullshit. Like grown ass men sitting in a bar and glorifying their long-lost bad behaviour.
10. Blind Eye (feat. Dennis Thompson)
Finally a decent song but a little too power pop to be the MC5
11. Can’t Be Found (feat. Vernon Reid & Dennis Thompson)
Similar to the above. All rightish song. At least the drums pump properly.
12. Blessed Release
Those vocals are pissing me off. Mandatory freak out ending when the song runs out of runway and has nowhere else to go.
13. Hit It Hard (feat. Joe Berry)
Someone heard Rob Zombie's version of The Commodores’ “Brick House” and decided no-one would recognise it if they didn't write a catchy enough chorus. Curiously, it's not actually that bad. Perhaps it is my favourite song here. However, if it dropped on the radio, you'd never say MC5.
Okay. That's it. A quick look at the song list tells me 10 and 11 feature “Machine Gun” Thomspon. I think that demonstrates how this disc might have been improved.
Now the tough part. How many bottles? May I suggest a new ranking scheme? How about tins of Fosters (remembering even the most simpering alcoholic in Australia wouldn't drink the stuff.)
I give you three tins of Fosters. - Bob Short
No, it’s not the MC5 and it doesn’t sound much like them. The late Wayne Kramer was second-last man standing when he started this project under his old band’s name. The other then-survivor, drummer Dennis Thompson, presumably gave some form of consent because he plays on two tracks, but he and Kramer sadly passed before the record was released.
Let’s accept that using the band’s name is a marketing tool. A few dopes will be duped. They identified themselves in some of the reviews that went online the day the record was released, gushing about the good old days of the Grande although they probably weren’t born when it closed. I wasn’t there either guys, but did you think of listening to “Kick Out The Jams” before telling people “Heavy Lifting” recreates it?
The 5’s criminally belated induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Lame will undoubtedly help sales. Fuck those morons who kept them out for so long. The rest of us should treat this like a new Wayne Kramer album. And a good one except the guests do too much “heavy lifting”.
Yes, there’s a army of players on “Heavy Lifting”. Some of the original 5’s spirit still shines through in occasionally political lyrics and a pushing of the envelope into musical styles outside the predictable. Regardless, few 75-year-olds were still rocking like Brother Wayne when he shuffled off this mortal coil.
Kramer’s writing collaborator was Oakland muso Brad Brooks and they share vocals. The core band includes Wayne’s old mate Don Was on bass. Guests include Vernon Reid (Living Colour), Tim Mcllrath (Rise Against), Joe Berry (M83), Vicki Randle (Aretha Franklin) and Stevie Salas (Parliament, Funkadelic and Rod Stewart).
Apart from the jaw-dropping opus “Skunk (Sonically Speaking)” on “High Times”, the MC5 never fully unfurled their funky freak flag on record. Despite their huge debt to soul era James Brown, when they made it into a studio beyond the clutches of Jon Landau, they were keener on exploring free jazz.
Given more time and better drugs, maybe they would have landed somewhere near Sly And The Family Stone and Funkadelic, given the mixing of the colours underway in the Motor City. We’ll never know . Sonic Smith and Rob Tyner would have had a bit to say about the direction of the 5 and they aren’t around to ask.
One thing is for sure: “Heavy Lifting” has “heavy funk” at its core. Cock an ear to “I Am The Fun (The Phoney)”, the falsetto “Change, No Change” or “Because of Your Car” and say different.
Nowhere is that more apparent than on the pigeon pair of the lascivious “Blessed Relief” and the album closer,, “Hit It Hard”. Brooks’ upper range vocal dominates both, the former resolving in a coda of dissonant guitars and the latter taken over by Joe Berry’s sax and (presumably) Vicki Randle’s vocal.
Guitar fans will still find much to like. The title track is a mid-tempo metal rap strut with some nice guitarwork from Tom Morello and Kramer, and the lead-off digital single “Boys Who Play With Matches” grows with repeated listens (in spite of its odd production).
Dennis Thompson’s work on “Blind Eye” and the ultimately optimistic “Can’t Be Found” is rock solid but without his trademark explosive fills.
Of course the undercurrent of politics are present but nothing here is as direct as, say, “American Ruse” or “Human Being Lawnmower”. It’s surprising because it’s not as if Kramer didn’t have ample source material. The lyrics of “Barbarians At The Gate” are obviously about the unhinged 2021 assault on United States Capitol Building in Washington. “Blind Eye” is an overt poke at middle class apathy and/or universal ignorance.
Some parts of the album miss the mark. Like Jagger on one of his disco trips, Brooks’ falsetto wears thin with repeated listens. It’s understandable that Brother Wayne’s register wouldn’t have extended that far these days, so why didn’t they write the songs in a lower key?
“Edge Of The Switchblade” is a reheated Kramer tribute to John Sinclair from 1995’s “The Hard Stuff” with William DuVall (Alice in Chains) on lead vocal. Plenty of “whoops” and “yeahs” and guest guitarist Slash adds some flash, but it’s not an advance on the original and sounds forced.
Bob Ezrin’s production is brash and bombastic and often puts the vocals too far up front. It’s downright clunky in parts. Can’t we have dry drums and some space for the guitars to cut through?
Maybe undisclosed health reasons explain Kramer's reliance on others in shaping the album's sound. Nobody should have expected another "High Times". With so many ingredients missing, it was never possible. Unlike “The Weirdness” by their reconstituted baby brother band, The Stooges, “Heavy Lifting” isn’t a bad album. It just needed more Wayne without pretending to be something it isn’t.
Hot tip: Do some hunting and track down the CD edition with a bonus disc of live tracks by MC50, recorded to mark the 50th anniversary of “KOTJ”. It is an absolutely killer collection of recordings from three 2018 shows, mostly with Marcus Durant of Zen Guerilla on vocals. It goes closer to capturing the sound - and fire - of the genuine 5. Listen to Kramer’s solo on “Poison” and tell us in the comments if there’s a song on “Heavy Lifting” that comes close.
R.I.P. The MC5. - The Barman
1/2
