Heavy Tune of the Week is a characteristic on Heavy Consequence breaking down the highest steel, punk, and exhausting rock tracks you’ll want to hear each Friday. This week, No. 1 goes to Fugitive’s single “Spheres of Virulence.”
Recent off a brand new file take care of Blue Grape Music, Texas band Fugitive dropped their first new music in two years this week within the type of the ripper “Spheres of Virulence” — probably the greatest thrash choices of 2025 to date.
The band emerged in 2021 as a kind of spinoff of Energy Journey within the wake of Riley Gale’s tragic passing a 12 months prior. Guitarist Blake Ibanez joined with frontman Seth Gilmore — who’s now the present vocalist of Energy Journey — and different members of the Texas hardcore/steel scene to kind what would turn out to be Fugitive, with the band releasing an EP in 2022 and a 7” in 2023.
The comparisons to Energy Journey have been inevitable, and Fugitive’s first releases are just about in the identical vein as Ibanez and Gilmore’s extra well-known venture. Nonetheless, on “Spheres of Virulence,” there’s much less crossover hardcore affect, as Fugitive faucet into extra of an ’80s speed-thrash vibe with hints of early old-school loss of life steel. The band sounds prefer it has discovered its personal voice right here, outdoors of its Energy Journey associations.
Honorable Mentions:
Quicker Pussycat – “Bike”
Quicker Pussycat have all the time been capable of pen a rattling catchy tune, and their genuine method and knack for large hooks helped set them other than a lot of their extra vapid hair steel friends again within the day (as documented in Penelope Spheeris’ legendary Decline of Western Civilization Half II). Nicely, the cathouse boys nonetheless acquired it, as heard on their newest single “Bike,” a bluesy romp that breaks into a kind of signature, earworm choruses — this one virtually reaching bubblegum ranges of sing-a-long catchiness. It’s additionally good to see frontman Taime Downe again on the grind and doing what he loves following the non-public tragedy he suffered earlier this 12 months.
Nova Twins – ”Piranha”
Nova Twins as soon as once more toe the road between pop and steel on their newest single “Piranha.” A gradual electro beat paces the music, with the Twins — aka Amy Love and Georgia South — laying down crushing guitar chords and vocal hooks in addition. Clocking in at beneath three minutes, the music is structurally extra pop-oriented, however the unabashed use of rock and steel instrumentation units it aside out of your customary Prime 40 fare.
Pelican – “Evergreen”
Flickering Resonance marks the primary Pelican album from the band’s founding lineup since 2009, signaling a sonic callback to the band’s earliest instrumental works. As heard on the appropriately titled album spotlight “Evergreen,” the reunited lineup — seemingly unmarred by time — decide up proper the place they left off, churning out heavy post-hardcore riffs that beget softer passages and plush soundscapes of suggestions.