HIGH TIME

The new MC5 album took more than 50 years to arrive. The band members have all passed on, but the celebration is just beginning.

- GARY GRAFF

ON STAGE AT El Club, a respectably divey club in his hometown of Detroit, for a Cinco de Mayo show in 2022, Wayne Kramer was preparing to play something more than 50 years in the making a new MC5 song.

"Some bands take two years between albums," Kramer told a packed house at what was, in fact, the first show by a new MC5 lineup. "Some bands take five years between albums. We take 50." He then cranked up his famed American flag-painted Stratocaster to play the metallic riff that introduces "Heavy Lifting," the title track from what is the first MC5 album since 1971's High Time. It's a 13-track set that fits the band's legacy well. From its boldly topical lyricism to a guitar assault led by Kramer - with guest appearances from Tom Morello, Slash, Vernon Reid, Rise Against's Tim McIlrath, Steve Salas and Soundgarden's Kim Thayil - Heavy Lifting is a true testimonial to the original troupe's jam-kicking power.

But much has changed in the two-and-a-half-year interim since that show. Kramer passed away from pancreatic cancer on February 2, in Los Angeles, at the age of 75. Two months later to the day, John Sinclair, MC5's manager and mentor, also died.

With MC5's three other members - Rob Tyner, Fred "Sonic" Smith and Michael Davis - gone years before, that left drummer Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson as the band's only living member, and he died on May 9, also aged 75, after suffering a debilitating heart attack the month before.

Sadly, his death came less than three weeks after the announcement that MC5 would receive an Award for Musical Achievement from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after six previous unsuccessful nominations.

If all that places a bit of a pall over the arrival of Heavy Lifting, however, those involved with finishing it are sworn to make sure the record's release is a celebration, not a wake.