POP MUSIC REVIEW : Hugh Harris Magic Missing at Roxy

It was the end of an aura at the Roxy on Wednesday. That’s when the haunting atmospheres that English singer Hugh Harris cooked up on his recent debut album were converted into a harder-rocking, more anonymous sound that robbed him of his best features.

On that album, “Words for Our Years,” Harris’ eccentric, enigmatic compositions pull you into a sultry spell of Hendrix-like sound washes and Princely R&B;/pop reveries. In those settings, Harris’ grainy, scratchy voice has room to maneuver as it pinpoints telling moments of truth.

But in his L.A. debut at the Roxy, Harris fronted a four-piece band that lacked the touch to create those subtle tonal gradations. His singing could still exert some magic at times, but since he was usually pushing it to its peak, it lost the qualities that distinguish it on record.

Harris worked mainly in the Jimmy Cliff/Van Morrison trance mode: eyes closed, voice winding through the arrangements on what was intended to be a voyage of spontaneous discovery. That left the show without much focus but did yield some entrancing passages, notably on two of the album’s high points, “Alice” and “Mr. Woman Loves Mrs. Man.” His free-form opening, an intense meditation on death, suggested a Terence Trent D’Arby invocation.

Speaking of whom. . . . If D’Arby has too much ambition and ego for his own good, Harris could use a little of his leftovers. Besides the musical timidity, Harris was done in by his unwillingness or inability to offer any personality, much less charisma, on stage.