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Apr 15, 2026 By Caleb Campbell

Montreal-based indie pop outfit Fireball Kid debuted in 2022 with their record Emotional Bros Hotline, followed by their synth pop-tinged second outing, Gas Station, the next year. Those first two records leaned heavily on party-ready vibes and vibrant hooks, but Fireball Kid’s latest efforts find them pivoting towards a textured psych pop effort, shaded with tape hiss, dusky acoustic touches, and a more reflective lyrical bent. They’re releasing their third full-length album, Deer Path Turn to a Shortcut, next month, and returned earlier this year with two new singles from the album, “Guilt Drive” and “At Your Leisure.” Today, they’re back with another new track, “King of the Lake,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“King Of The Lake” is the most breezy and sun-dappled of Fireball Kid’s recent singles. The track feels like it would be a perfect fit for a sunny lakeside playlist, complete with laidback guitar lines and watery keys. They dress up the track with cooing backing vocals, feather-light acoustic guitars, and just a hint of driving energy on the chorus, but they largely let the loose vibes and airy vocal melodies sigh away. The resulting track has its own unique beach-bum magnetism, soaked in welcoming hooks and an unexpectedly meditative undercurrent. Lyrically, the track finds Fireball Kid remembering a local fixture who passed away, leaving behind a legacy of charm, good times, and little else: “He was the king of that lake / Always had a smile on his face / Those are things that people say / When an old fella passes away / I heard they’re gonna have the lake drained / And tow the garbage away / Melt down the old beer cans / Into a plaque for the king of the lake.”

Fireball Kid says of the track, “The way people talk about an old man in their town or neighborhood when they pass away is insane, in a good way. There are tiny legends down the road from where you grow up, who you only remember through these epithets and very asinine stories about how they’d deal their cards or how many beers they kept in the fridge. Ultimately, like the most human thing ever to me is how we remember the nice crazy guy down the road for the rest of our life by passing their drinking habits into myth.”

Check out the song and accompanying video below, along with their upcoming tour dates. Deer Path Turn to a Shortcut is out on May 8th via Born Losers Records.