HAVOK have released "The Ultimate Weapon", a new single with an official video, out through BLKIIBLK — the heavy music imprint of Frontiers Label Group that the Colorado quartet signed to earlier this year.
The timing is deliberate. "We're excited to debut this new song right before our two headline tours begin," the band said. "We'll be playing 'The Ultimate Weapon' live and look forward to hearing crowds shout the choruses with us. Driving riffs, rock 'n' roll attitude, and anti-authoritarian lyrics. This is what heavy metal is all about. This is HAVOK."
That is a fair description of the song and of the band's last fifteen years alike. HAVOK have never been interested in reinventing thrash so much as in playing it with the safety off — throat-slicing guitars welded to breakneck rhythms, and vocals that go for the jugular. What has kept them relevant while the revival bands around them thinned out is that the fundamentals are airtight and the lyrics have something on their mind.
Two headline runs follow. In Europe the band go out with BLOOD RED THRONE, XONOR and ERADIKATED. In North America they have a 26-date headline tour booked for the autumn with support from HELLRIPPER, SLACKJAW and XOTH, kicking off October 21 at Metro Music Hall in Salt Lake City and running across the country before a hometown finish at Denver's Gothic Theatre on November 20.
"The Ultimate Weapon" is the second song from the BLKIIBLK era, following "Fifth Generation Warfare", which introduced the signing back in May. The band have said more new music is coming in 2026.
Behind them sit five albums — "Burn" (2009), "Time Is Up" (2011), "Unnatural Selection" (2013), "Conformicide" (2017) and "V" (2020) — plus the "New Eyes" EP in 2024, their first independent release. "V" in particular was treated as a high-water mark by the press, with reviewers crediting the band with nailing what twenty-first-century thrash should sound like. Tens of millions of streams and a decade and a half of touring later, they are still moving at the same pace.