The members of Clannad know whereof they sing. “The art of compromise has been our greatest strength,” the Irish fusioneers chant in “A Bridge (That Carries Us Over),” the most telling number on the band’s new disc, Lore. Clannad seems to frame that song as a message of hope for peace in Northern Ireland, but it describes the group’s own experience better than Eire’s. The secret to Ireland’s survival has been a reflexive indomitability that has absorbed invasion and subjugation yet kept the native culture intact. Although rooted in traditional Celtic music, Clannad has seen chart successes arise from soundtracks and commercials (“I Will Find You” got big play in The Last of the Mohicans; “Harry’s Game” saw duty in a Volkswagen ad and in the thriller Patriot Games)—a region where compromise reigns. But the most engaging tunes on Lore—and on Clannad’s other collections—do not make concessions to the marketplace. With their uncommercially spooky rhythms and lilting but guttural Gaelic lyrics, songs like“Alasdair Mac Colla” and “Trathona Beag Arèir” compromise not at all, and as a result are Lore‘s (and Clannad’s) truly greatest strengths.