POP MUSIC REVIEW : Great Plains: Vast Potential : The quartet, cut from the cloth of ‘70s country-rock bands, has the raw material to set itself apart from its bland generation.

How country is the quartet Great Plains? Well, when the group sang about rodeo at the Crazy Horse on Monday, it wasn’t a bronc-busting, calf-roping, bull-riding rodeo. It was Rodeo Drive, and the band was observing that you can’t buy love there, in a song that pokes fun at the myth of the L.A. high life.

Not exactly Steely Dan or, more to the point, the Eagles, but with its biting lyric and catchy rock crunch, the song is one sign of the potential that sets Great Plains apart from the latest generation of bland country bands.

It also illustrates that they’re too close to their sources to claim prominence yet, and the new songs they showcased in Santa Ana suggest that their impending second album won’t be a work that extends their strengths into an assertive statement or arrival.

That’s disappointing, but in a country market that encourages bands to be shallow and musically well-groomed, even sporadic inspiration is welcome.

Great Plains is as far from country’s deep roots as the members’ home states, Minnesota and Oregon, are from Nashville, where they’re now based. And while one of their best new songs was an understated, nostalgic salute to the old Ryman Auditorium (when they sing about “down on Broadway,” it’s Nashville, not New York), the group is firmly in the mold of ‘70s country-rock bands.

Jack Sundrud sings with a husky, dusky, slightly roughed-up edge descended directly from Don Henley’s Eagles days. It carries a melancholy tinge wherever it goes, and on the aforementioned “Rodeo Drive” Sundrud broadened his enunciation to evoke early Steely Dan’s sardonic Donald Fagen.

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Sundrud’s best songs (he wrote or co-wrote everything on the 1991 debut album, “Great Plains”) also touch on the Eagles’ themes of pain, regret and warning, and while they don’t have the maturity and individuality of their models, they’re heartfelt and articulate.

“Faster Gun” was a standout Monday, but the set’s most compelling moment came with the new ballad “No Chains on Me,” in which Sundrud negotiates a profoundly difficult transaction involving freedom and loneliness.

In contrast, too much of the new material was catchy, facile and cute. These songs helped the set move along at a nice clip, but they also steered it away from those more emotionally treacherous, artistically rewarding areas.

Maybe it’s a tough choice for the band, but there really should be no question whether to be the next Alabama or the next Eagles.