GREEN: LOOSE, LOOPY

Dan Stuart looked like a hefty John Cougar Mellencamp on the Lingerie stage Friday, and he projected a loose, loopy charm as he led Green on Red through the music that’s made the quintet one of the most highly praised acts on the local circuit. The sound rings and shimmers, and while most songs move at a deliberate mid-tempo, they develop a gripping intensity as Stuart keens his cutting observations about such bedrock matters as money, faith, heroes and dreams. It’s rock with a country twang, a la Neil Young, with minor debts to Dylan and Country Joe, among others.

But as seductive as the sound is, and as engaging as Stuart can be, his songs draw too heavily on familiar sources. He recycles the sentiments and rearranges the language with invention, and his sincerity helps, but he needs to make the leap into an original vision to move Green on Red from the promising to the revelatory.