Balaam & the Angel’s Shopworn Riffs

The British quartet Balaam & the Angel should be part of a touring show called “Cultmania.” As these musicians showed at the Roxy on Friday night, they’re not the Cult, but a not-so-incredible simulation.

Like that English band, which has tried to breathe life into the ghost of ‘70s hard rock, Balaam & the Angel offered big guitars, big drums, big hair, big attitude and enough shopworn Led Zep, AC/DC and Free riffs to start its own classic-rock station. On such songs as “I Love the Things You Do to Me” and “Light of the World” this regurgitation was leavened with a sharp pop sensibility. But the bulk of the tedious 45-minute set never achieved uplift.

Part of the problem was that the band downplayed tracks from its rather stylish debut LP, “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” and instead concentrated on material from the more drably metallic new one, “Live Free or Die.” The low point was a lackluster reworking of Donna Summer’s disco classic “I Feel Love.” Come back, Donna, all is forgiven.

Second-billed Chaintown played a well-executed set of state-of-the-art late-’80s rock that sounded like what might result if INXS invited John Cougar Mellencamp over for lunch.