Their name precedes them: Full Frontal Folk. Hard to tell, just looking at a name like that, whether these women intend humor or softcore. A quick peep at their favorite promo shot -- which looks like it would be at home in the back of this book -- makes it easy to not expect much in the way of music from these naked ladies. Easy and dead wrong.

A Full Frontal Folk showcase at the North East Regional Folk Alliance startled the audience with the absolute purity of the four-part harmonies, the full roots sound coming from trendy-looking women, pierced, dyed and tattooed to the max. When the final note of that first song finished its decay, the house exploded in applause.

So what's up with a name that could as easily be a liability as a selling point? When Courtney Malley -- a.k.a. Delilah Frontal -- and other founders of the Xtreme Folk Scene were looking for a name for the new concert-producing group, Full Frontal Folk was one that had been considered and rejected. She liked it though, and filed it away.

The group itself sprang to life as a lark. All the members are second-generation Folk Song Society members who grew up making music. Last year they found themselves all bunking in the same cabin at the Spring Thing, the Society's make-your-own music weekend. While they were vaguely aware of one another over the years, they had never made music together. Wendy Fuhr (Fatale Frontal), M.D. in Collegeville by day and fiddler with bands like So's Your Mom evenings and weekends, suggested learning a tune from O Brother, which was red-hot at the time. Malley, Thea Shoulson (Jezebel) and Jennifer Schenck (Lolita) readily agreed to do it for a lark. "We learned one song the week before and one the day of the performance," says Malley. They went on as the O Canada Girls and the reception astonished them. "We were getting gigs before we even decided to be a group. We had to tell people to hold off a little, we only knew three or four songs!" Local folk disc jockey Gene Shay added fuel to the fire. After that debut performance, he made a point of finding them and insisting that they couldn't stop now.

Shay, who will be celebrating his 40th anniversary in folk music in the spring, continues to endorse FFF. According to him, Full Frontal Folk bears no strong resemblance to any group he has ever seen before. This is a very good thing. He explains, "They have their roots in folk music and their heads in the contemporary world."

And those roots have been growing. Malley, 36, is the daughter of Frank Malley, himself a known sean-nos (traditional Irish) singer, who raised her in the tradition. Courtney Malley rattles off a who's-who list of Irish singers, like Delores Keane, who would always stop by when touring through the area. She casually calls Joe Heaney her "uncle." "He started teaching me to sing when I was 6 or 7 years old." Malley brings the Irish aspect to FFF, as well as her 15 years with Somethingblack, who worked the local watering holes, covering Beatles and CSN, with a soupçon of Lucy Kaplansky and Dar Williams tossed in to brighten the eyes of the more sophisticated drinkers.

Thirty-one-year-old Schenck's musical tutelage came from her father, Steven Schonwald. The Schonwalds have just released a CD of "songs of sailing, whaling and maritime life" titled Teller of Tales. Fuhr, 34, has been playing bluegrass and Irish fiddle professionally since age 17. You'll hear her on many local artists' recordings.

Shoulson, 29, is the newest to performing. Her dad, Joel, was one of the original folkies at the legendary '60s Gilded Cage coffee shop/hotspot, so there was always traditional music around. Shoulson made her music privately. When she did finally come out of the woodshed, Malley says, "people were blown away." Shoulson's is the low voice that recalls June Tabor, who is an inspiration for all the Frontals. Shoulson also has a taste for punk. Malley chortles over the enthusiasm the group receives for its version of Bad Religion's "Anesthesia."

"What the name means to us is that it's in-your-face folk as opposed to singer/songwriter-angst folk music," says Malley. "We don't do much in the way of ballads and we don't lean towards the touchy-feely, Œit's all about me' drama/angst music that seems to pervade the folk scene at the moment. We believe strongly in the joy and beauty of traditional-style music whether it's contemporary or hundreds of years old." And, let's add, all those beliefs are lived in a most lighthearted way.

Full Frontal Folk perform Sat., Dec. 28, 8 p.m., $10, with Elaine, Lambert & Karl, The Point, 880 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 610-527-0988.