POP WEEKEND : Warren Zevon Is Still Steering Clear of Deep Waters : Crackerjack band’s Coach House performance was hurt by its reliance on rote ‘70s arrangements.

Warren Zevon’s strongest asset has always been the overtly clever, often incisive, narrative quality of his songs. His best ones have shown an attention for detail that moves like a street-sweeper through the California dream. But far less often has Zevon given the impression he was reaching into his own depths for his material, and there is an emotional distance to much of his work. Unfortunately, Zevon’s performance at the Coach House on Saturday seemed custom-designed to make that distance even greater.

A competent guitarist himself, Zevon was joined by bassist Jennifer Condos, drummer Ian Wallace and guitarist Frank Simes in a crackerjack band. But the prize was missing. Nearly every song was given an overamped, hard-rocking arrangement. When Neil Young gives his material a similar treatment, it is usually to push it to such a jagged, dangerous musical edge that the songs become all the more personal.

Lacking that chancy approach, and further hampered by his uninflected baritone, Zevon’s lyrics instead were submerged in rote ‘70s arrangements that made many of the efforts in the 14-song set sound like Jo Jo Gunne on a bad night. Even his more reflective recent songs, such as “Splendid Isolation” and 1987’s “Detox Mansion,” took on an arena-rock sheen, which only worked well with the crowd-pleasers “Werewolves of London” and “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

The only point where the music seemed to aid the content was on Zevon’s sci-fi themed “Transverse City.” Singing of “poisoned waves of grain,” Zevon paints a harrowing future: “Here’s the hum of desperation / Here’s the test tube mating call / Here’s the latest carbon cycle / Here’s the clergy of the mall.” The tense rhythm section and Simes’ dissonant flanged guitar lines underscored the vocal in a way begged for by the rest of the set.

Openers the Raindogs were a far more persuasive musical outfit, working Celtic and American folk influences into a roots-rock context. The result compared favorably with John Mellencamp’s recent Fairport Convention Meets American Harvester efforts.

Setting the Boston-based band up a notch in the crowded roots-guy field are Johnny Cunningham’s excellent fiddle and mandolin manipulations. Apart from “Something Wouldn’t Be the Same,” which was driven by front man Mark Cutler’s sinuous guitar lines, Cunningham’s Scottish-tinged string work provided most of the band’s color.

While the quintet played with a passionate precision, and Cutler offered an appealing, if limited, voice, the band seemed constrained by its short 30-minute set time, and a repertoire that was only occasionally worthy of their musicianship. Of the band’s eight songs, only the closing “Dirty Town” (a new song not on the recently released “Lost Souls” album) provided sufficient kindling for the group to catch fire, keeping pace with Cunningham’s frenzied romps on both his instruments.