79. MC5 - "Heavy Lifting"

We have had one posthumous release, but this is the final word in final records. By the time this was released, there was nobody left. This is the first MC5 album in 53 years and definitively their last, as the two remaining members alive (Wayne Krammer and Dennis Thompson) both sadly passed away soon after its completion.

For a band with the legacy and historical importance of the MC5, “Heavy Lifting” is actually a fitting swan song. Any notion of it being derivative or safe are swept away when you take into account that MC5 invented garage rock. Without them there is no Stooges and Iggy, no Ramones and therefore no Punk. This album shows simultaneously that everything has changed in 53 years and nothing has changed. It is essentially an eye-spy spotter’s guide to everything musically that they have influenced or been the catalyst for. 

It is an unrepentant rock n’ roll record, that revels in the wonder of soaring guitar, thumping bass and pounding drum. It builds upon their previous two records by showing that they have indeed listened to everything that their year zero has begot. Eclectic, but cohesive enough to feel like a linear whole as opposed to a complication. A fitting full stop to one of the most important bands ever.