The Mohawk Lodge, ‘1000 Violins’ – Free MP3 Download

The Mohawk Lodge’s take on punk isn't one you'd expect from the genre, though today's free MP3 has been called their rawest and most visceral effort. True to the spirit of punk, recording for '1000 Violins' -- and the 'Damaged Goods' album on the whole -- was completed live during a muggy Canadian heatwave with help from the same backing band that had inspired the tunes on a European tour just prior.

Ryder Havdale, mastermind and frontman, told Diffuser.fm that 'Damaged Goods' "is about having lost your soul somewhere out on the road."

"We'd just returned from a winter hell tour across Europe, where everything that could go wrong did go wrong," he said. "At the end of it, we just wanted to go home, and we drove for a day straight through blizzards to get to Heathrow (Deathrow?), only to find all flights were cancelled for the next two days … We spent 4 days in that airport. I wrote the lyrics for '1000 Violins' while recovering the following week."

'1000 Violins' may be an unlikely ballad and an even more unlikely "punk" anthem, given that it features a waltzing rhythm and is led by a solemn wail. But titles aside, only the punk rock perseverance of true road dogs could carry the Mohawk Lodge through elements like they faced on that tour from hell. Pick up a copy of 'Damaged Goods' via White Whale Records here.