ONE might have witnessed Aimee Leonard in a psychedelic blur playing bodhran as backdrop to Brendan Graham's pseudo-Celtic Eurovision-winning song last year. Here she testily jockeyed her ego for pole position in Brian O'Hara's and Myles Farrell's, elastic band, which now enters yet another personnel and sound metamorphosis. Anam here were evocative of many things in a deja vu way. Authenticity hooks like "this song is 500 years old" suggested 1960s gem-hunting; song delivery with guitar bashing was Clancy Brothers with added harmony; guitarist-singer O'Hara's style was Albert Fry when as Gaeilge, and a synthesis of "folk" and Daniel O'Donnell with Eurovision in his own material.

Treasa Ni Earcain's reserved, ornament-free button-accordion cried out for fiddle or flute. Farrell was quietly impressive on bazouki, and Leonard's vocals were good (particularly on The Trooper, which her Orkney voice-shape handled matchlessly), while her bodhran playing was unpretentious and quite brilliant.

But what was it all about? If the "traditional" label means anything it involves at least a strong, coherent melody line - "tunes", with the extras of rhythm and counterpoint - sourced in and teased out from their baroque complexity. Anam's unchallenging tune, skeletons and scat shapes here put no value on the group's own ability with arrangements, their terrific way with colours and shapes, and structures that knocked wonderful tonal value out of four acoustic instruments applied to a handful of jigs and reels.