Watts are right to bill themselves as scrappy underdogs, a potent kind of back-alley fix. Playing live around their native Boston, they probably toss off buckets of electrified sweat. You've seen these kinds of shows before: you're wasted in a skeevy pub, a no-name band with dueling guitars and a monstrous rhythm takes the stage, and a knowing local cult starts up the kind of mosh pit respectable venues would never allow. You couldn't care less that each song has only three chords, that the singer is stringing together incomprehensible couplets just so the lines rhyme, that some greasy fat guy keeps pushing up on you. This band kicks an unbelievable amount of ass. Buying their CD-R after the show, your dehydrated brain insists, is priority numero uno. How are these guys not already topping the charts?!

And when you get around to spinning the disc sober, you note that this is not the same band. The playing is tightly, professionally executed, a few of the hooks are dead on, but most of it feels shopworn, generic. And as with most generic products, a bland package contains an ambitionless center of modest effect. Even when it works, you barely notice. Eventually, you'll go back to a patented name brand like Chuck Berry instead.