Rubyhorse Is Looking for a Place to Fit In

Back in the ‘60s, British groups did us a service by bringing American blues and rock back to their homeland. But is there any need today to import American-sounding music in the vein of the Wallflowers and Counting Crows?

That seems to be the redundant mission of Rubyhorse, a band that originated in Cork, Ireland, and resettled in Boston in 1998. Wednesday at the Roxy--as on its recent major-label debut album, “Rise”--the quintet showed a knack for the pleasing melodies, middle-of-the-road rock and familiar emotional terrain of those U.S. bands, but lacked their distinctive touches.

Rubyhorse started its crisp, polished, 45-minute set evoking Irish rock gods U2 and Scotland’s Simple Minds on the electro-pulse-driven “Evergreen.” George Harrison was honored with a portion of “My Sweet Lord” inserted in “Punchdrunk.” The Rolling Stones were referenced via a bit of “Satisfaction” shoehorned uncomfortably into “Into the Lavender.”

The band is not without its presence and charm--singer Dave Farrell seemed endearingly earnest, if not exceedingly charismatic. Still, it’s not enough to compensate for the trite lyrics and undistinguished professionalism that mark most of the songs.

Which isn’t to say that the band won’t ride its current single, the uplifting if generic “Sparkle,” to pop-chart success. There’s clearly a big market for this stuff, attested to by Train and Matchbox Twenty. Should that happen, maybe the question of whether or not the band is actually needed on these shores would be rendered moot.

But until then, it’s worth posing.