Hear the MC5’s Last Two Original Members Kick Out the Jams on ‘Can’t Be Found’

More than half a century after the release of the last MC5 album, 1971’s High Time , a new album masterminded by the group’s guitarist Wayne Kramer, who died in February , will come out this fall. The record, Heavy Lifting , includes two songs that feature original MC5 drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson, who died in May , alongside guest appearances by Slash, Tom Morello, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, and Don Was, among others.

MC5 to Release New Album 'Heavy Lifting,' First LP in 53 Years

The new single, “Can’t Be Found,” begins with a muscular bass line that leads a typically powerful guitar riff. “Anybody who want humility and grace can’t be found,” Kramer sings with a little help from gospel-inspired singers. “Can you stop the lying in my face? Can’t be found.” Reid plays a bluesy, jazzy, and pyrotechnical guitar solo in the middle of the song that hangs a squealing note on Kramer’s observation that “The grass isn’t greener if it’s all on fire.”

Kramer sang and played guitar on the entire album and co-wrote 12 of its 13 tracks with singer-songwriter Brad Brooks. Bob Ezrin (Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, Kiss) produced the record, which also features contributions from Alice in Chains’ William DuVall, Rise Against’s Tim McIllrath, and musicians who have played with Aretha Franklin, Parliament-Funkadelic, Paul McCartney, and Bob Dylan.

“We are all part of the same mindset, living in the same world, and we all want to make a difference,” Kramer told Rolling Stone in 2022. “Each collaborator to a person has helped me to relay that message. Also, my songwriting with Brad Brooks has really been a therapeutic process … for both of us. And then to layer Bob Ezrin on top added a whole new layer of complexity that then widened my scope and my ideas even further.”

A special two-CD edition of the album will include previously unreleased live recordings from the MC50 tour , which featured Kramer playing songs from the MC5’s Kick Out the Jams with members of Soundgarden, Fugazi, Faith No More, and Mudhoney.

Dennis Thompson, MC5 Drummer and Last Surviving Original Member, Dead at 75

The album’s first single “Boys Who Play With Machines” arrived last month.

Heavy Lifting Track List

1. “Heavy Lifting” (featuring Tom Morello)
2. “Barbarians at the Gate”
3. “Change, No Change”
4. “The Edge of the Switchblade” (featuring William DuVall and Slash)
5. “Black Boots” (featuring Tim McIIrath)
6. “I Am the Fun” (The Phoney)
7. “Twenty-Five Miles”
8. “Because of Your Car”
9. “Boys Who Play With Matches”
10. “Blind Eye” (featuring Dennis Thompson)
11. “Can’t Be Found” (featuring Vernon Reid and Dennis Thompson)
12. “Blessed Release”
13. “Hit It Hard” (featuring Joe Berry)

John Sinclair, Poet, MC5 Manager, and Activist, Dead at 82