The Hard Stuff (1995)

When the MC5 burst out of riot-torn Detroit in the late '60s, its incendiary political outbursts and double-barreled guitar assault made the band natural punk forefathers. Wayne Kramer, one of those guitar heroes, tries hard to update his social commentary on The Hard Stuff (with all-star cameos by members of the Circle Jerks, Bad Religion, the Melvins, and Suicidal Tendencies), but the result is a bombastic album dominated by tales of '90s-style sociopolitical decay. Fist-pumping fervor lapses here all too often into humorless, trite self-righteousness. C+