Solas wants you to know just how good they are.

To make sure you know, they put together their self-titled album, Solas. Anyone who gives it a listen will come away convinced that this band has earned its niche among the top performers of Irish traditional tunes.

The Irish-American band boasts an excellent group of musicians, featuring Seamus Egan on flutes, pipes and whistles, John Doyle on guitars, Winifred Horan on fiddles and John Williams on accordion and concertina. John Anthony guests on percussion. On the album's many instrumentals, this group is simply scorching.

But any band with a singer lives or dies by that singer's talent. In Karan Casey, Solas has a winner.

Casey has a sweet, strong voice which ranks right up there with the amazing Cathy Jordan of the Irish supergroup Dervish. She demonstrates that from the get-go, launching into the first track, "Nil 'Na La," with enthusiastic Gaelic, switching midway to English lyrics for one bawdy verse -- "Don't send me out into the dark, / The night is cold and I'll be perished, / But come to bed with me a while, / We'll have a roll around the blankets." -- before returning to Gaelic. Of course, there is an English translation of the lyrics for those of us who don't know Gaelic, and this song tells the tale of a "senseless man" who refuses to leave the tavern before sunrise. This is, Casey explains in the liner notes, the Munster version of a northern drinking song, and it certainly has the feel of a band which enjoys a few pints.

After such a rollicking start, Casey slows things down for her next song, "I Wonder What's Keeping My True Love Tonight." This beautiful Ulster song is lovingly accompanied by Egan and Doyle. In this case, it's the man who loves true and the woman who breaks his heart, and Casey sings their parts with crystal-clear emotion.

Of particular note is Casey's interpretation of "My Johnny's Gone for a Soldier," often called "Siul a Run" and reaching new audiences as an all-Gaelic vocal track on the Lord of the Dance video. Casey sings this one in English and, unlike most singers, doesn't treat it as a "lonely love song." "I've come to think of it as a rebel song," she explains in her notes on the song, and she sings it with a kind of wistful optimism that most versions of this song lack. "The Newry Highwayman" gets similar treatment, although the happy-go-lucky tone is somewhat at odds with the protagonist's pending execution. Still, the song is so fun, it's easy not to notice the incongruity.

Her final song is "Sliabh Geal Gcua na Feile," a slow and sad lament, sung in Gaelic, which gives voice to the anguish of Irish exiles, forced by circumstances to seek a living elsewhere. This song in particular was written in 1890 by a coalminer working in Wales, and the English translation provided proves the poetry in the Irish soul.

Without Casey, Solas is no slouch when it comes to instrumentals. And Solas is packed with exciting, lively sets which would do any Irish band proud. The very first, including reels "The Flowing Bowl/Maire Breathnach's No. 1/The Doon/The Mason's Men," left me absolutely breathless just listening to it. They slow it down a bit for the next one, a strolling jig set including "The White Petticoat/Stan Chapman's/The Miller's Maggot," which crackles with energy despite being a good many mphs slower than its predecessor. Likewise, Egan shines at for "The Yellow Tinker," which leads straight into a grand duet between Horan and Williams in "Cranking Out." That set ends with "Master Crowley's No. 2," which brings them all together for the rousing finish.

The band switches tracks for the next one, "Crested Hens," which is a slow, gorgeous air featuring great ensemble work, particular Egan and Horan. Then the album fairly sizzles on "Dougie MacDonald's/Maire Breathnach's No. 2/The Antrim Rose/Atlantic Wave/Toss the Feathers."

Horan demonstrates her incredible skill for expressive fiddle playing in the mournful "Lament for Frankie." Coupled with some grand work by Egan on the low whistle, this makes for a wonderful, if sad, track.

The album concludes with an emotional "up" to bring listeners back from "Frankie." The final track, "Timmy Cliffords/The Return Home/O'ot Be Est da Vong/John Joe Casey's," is a nice ensemble set to close down the album.

Solas proves without room for debate that Solas is a force to be reckoned with. Watch for this band on the Irish circuit; their skills will blow you away.