Welterweights – Here Goes Nothing
Remember the Rainmakers? A little bit Replacements, a little bit Jason & the Scorchers, with some Waco Brothers tossed into the lyrical mix. Remember Government Cheese? That potent, adrenaline-sparking roots-rock vibe lives on, with a degree more fuzztone, in the Welterweights, who hail from the Rainmakers’ home region of Kansas City, Missouri.
The twin driving forces of “Honeymoon” and “Close Enough”, as well as most of the other cuts, are the utter urgency of singer-songwriter Nathaniel Williams’ rough-hewn vocals and the churning burning of Corey Heider’s fat rock chords on electric guitar. Loose and tight at the same time in that spirit-lifting way of raw rock, the Welterweights make Bottle Rockets-like music — “Hardly Used Car”, for instance — so vivid you can almost smell the beer and smoke of the bar through your speakers. Produced primarily by veteran Lou Whitney of the Morells/Skeletons, Here Goes Nothing captures the feel of a band going for broke every weekend.