DC punks Ekko Astral are ready to return with their sophomore album. Their new LP, dubbed The Beltway Is Burning, comes out April 22 via Topshelf. Leading the record is the single “Lil Xan Goes to Washington,” in which the titular character lobbies for addiction assistance legislation in Washington, D.C., only to succumb to K Street and become a sellout himself. Give the song a listen below, and check out its Alec Puglies-directed music video.
Recorded immediately after the 2024 U.S. election, Ekko Astral’s second album was written as a “real-time historical document in the form of a dark comedy,” according to a press release. Each song on The Beltway Is Burning is a vignette in the band’s fictionalized version of the Beltway, the area around I-495, where Adam Sandler is a godlike president and the DMV has become a demilitarized zone.
The Beltway Is Burning follows Ekko Astral’s debut album, 2024’s Pink Balloons. The new LP is 12 tracks long and boasts two guest features: Pop Music Fever Dream and Big Girl. It also includes the band’s searing single from last fall, “Horseglue,” which they called “a screeching call for moral clarity.”
Read about Pink Balloons at No. 1 in The 30 Best Rock Albums of 2024.
The Beltway Is Burning:
01 Body Generation
02 Lil Xan Goes to Washington
03 Horseglue
04 Beltway [ft. Pop Music Fever Dream]
05 WMATA
06 This Is Not a Call to Action But a Lamentation on the Situation at Hand (Or, Capital Riot)
07 Elegy for a System [ft. Big Girl]
08 Lovesick American Romance
09 Dude With Guitars
10 Sandler ’36
11 Blood Mountain
12 Comet Ping Pong
