Opus Kink turn "Loch Lomond" into ska-punk on "Low Roader"

Opus Kink released "Low Roader" on November 9. The single takes the traditional Scottish folk song "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond" and rebuilds it with saxophones and surf-rock guitars, landing somewhere between ska-punk and jazzy rockabilly.

Frontman Angus Rogers is blunt about where the melody comes from. "The verse melody is appropriated from the traditional Scottish song 'Loch Lomond,'" he said in a statement. He described the lyric's subject as complacency, ignorance and historical amnesia, and explained the title: the low road is the fairy route by which the dead travel back to their home country. The song, per Rogers, is "already at your door."

That folktale premise arrives as the band's latest cut, following their debut album The Sweet Goodbye, which came out this summer. The single and its companion video (linked above) are the whole of the announcement so far. Nothing further is announced.