POP MUSIC REVIEW : A CUTT BELOW AVERAGE

The more things change with Rough Cutt, the more they stay the same--bad!

At the Roxy on Monday, the local heavy-metal group unveiled its reconstituted lineup, featuring new singer Perry McCarty and one less guitarist (Amir Derakh is now the sole fret-grinder).

This was just the latest version of an outfit that has experienced so much employee turnover that it probably should have a full-time personnel director. In the past, the band has operated as a sort of metal farm team, feeding members to such major-league squads as Dio and Ozzy Osbourne’s band. (In a slight twist on that theme, McCarty used to front local group Warrior.)

There’s never been much reason, though, to believe that Rough Cutt itself would ever hit the big time. Monday’s show did little to change that impression, although the quartet’s large contingent of female fans--a key factor in the commercial success of groups from Ratt to Bon Jovi to Whitesnake--would seem to increase the odds a bit.

But essentially this is a band long on drums and short on songs. With several bass drums at various levels, David Alford’s drum kit is so high and wide that it may violate some municipal building codes.

Equally notable are Rough Cutt’s severe songwriting shortcomings. The basic moldus operandi seems to involve fastening a tired guitar riff to a rolling metallic shuffle, then letting McCarty indulge his Robert Plant complex.

The lyrics expand the metal genre’s methods of offending women. For example, in addition to the usual undercurrent of sexism and misogyny, there was one particularly sensitive tune that McCarty introduced this way: “This next song is for all the money-hungry women. . . .” Nice.