The HU open HUN the way a cavalry charge announces itself. ‘Warrior Chant’ arrives with the sound of riders cresting a hill, morin khuur sawing away underneath, throat singing rolling in low and steady, and the distinct sense that something enormous is about to happen. It is exactly what we want from The HU, and exactly what we came to this record hoping to hear.
Then the chant lands. Hu, Hu, Hu. Anyone who has stood in a The HU crowd knows it already, because it has become the call and response that follows the band from stage to stage, thousands of voices finding it without being asked.
What strikes you within seconds is how unmistakable it all is. The throat singing and the traditional instruments arrive, and there is no confusing it with anything else in heavy music. It is a proper taste of what rock and metal from Mongolia can be, and it is a genuine thrill to hear it stated this plainly from the first bar.
Next comes ‘Lost Soul’, featuring Jonny Hawkins of Better Noise labelmates Nothing More. It is a noticeable shift, considerably more dancey than what precedes it and carrying a completely different vibe, but the collaboration is a fun one and the track more than earns its place. What sells it is the handoff. When The HU kick back in, they pull the whole thing straight back to their own ground, that Mongolian rock and metal sound which really does have to be called unique, because nothing else in heavy music arrives quite like it. Worth knowing before you choose your format: the Hawkins version appears only on the digital release, so the CD gives you ‘Lost Soul’ without him.
‘The Men’ is where the influences really show themselves. There is a solo here that does everything a great metal solo should, and it isn’t a guitar playing it. It is the morin khuur, the horsehead fiddle, bowed and soaring exactly where you would expect a six string to take over. Galaa has said that he and Enkush built the solos on this record around the gait of a horse, and you can hear it, a lead line that gallops rather than shreds. You can absolutely hear the rock and metal heroes in The HU‘s DNA, and yet the sound remains entirely their own, which is a difficult trick to pull off twice, let alone across three albums.
‘Echoes of My Father’ slows everything down and turns out to be the most atmospheric thing here. The outro is genuinely unlike anything we have heard on a metal album, cinematic and enormously dramatic, and it earns every second of the six minutes it takes to get there. The band have said the first half belongs to their own fathers and the second to their experience of becoming fathers themselves, having spent previous albums honouring women and mothers. Jaya described it as watching how your father lives and becoming a man through it, and the video was made with the band’s own children. Knowing that, the ending lands differently. You do not need the Mongolian to feel what is happening.
If we had to pick one, it would be ‘Horsemen’. It rides, in every sense, a brilliant and properly heavy metal song built on a gallop that doesn’t let up, and it is impossible to hear it without picturing thousands upon thousands of metalheads with their heads down and moving. This is the one that will own the room this autumn. The band tie it to the Mongolian warriors who rode across most of the known world, the riders known as the Army of the Heavens for their mobility and their strength, and they frame the song as a reminder that real power comes from discipline, wisdom and unity.
‘Greed’ is the most interesting thing on the album to sit with. There is an interesting bridge in it, and the song takes a turn you do not see coming while never once letting go of that Mongolian core. It also turns out to be the record in miniature. Jaya has described modern life as leaving people far removed from the living world and guided by their greed, with these songs intended as a guide back toward introspection. Given that HUN translates as human, a track called ‘Greed’ sitting at the heart of it is no accident.
Then ‘The Real You’ arrives and, unless it is just us, there is something in it that recalls Megadeth. The Mongolian version, obviously. Another properly heavy metal track, and one squarely for the mosh heads. It is the moment on HUN where the Western influences step furthest forward, which makes sense given the band handed the mix to Chris Lord-Alge, and the thrash lineage in it is unmistakable once you hear it.
‘Grey Hun’ is another highlight, and one we came to already knowing a little about. Earlier this month we were lucky enough to be in the room at the Mongolian Embassy in London when The HU performed it acoustically for the first time anywhere, and the band explained the song to us then: it is about being authentic, and about staying brave and strong regardless of what life puts in front of you. Enkush has since said the riff began with him picturing a man riding across a vast landscape. Hearing the full electric version with that in mind, the sentiment carries. It is also one of only two tracks here sung in English, so it is likely to be the way in for a lot of new listeners.
‘Universe’ slows the album down again, and at eight and a half minutes it is easily the longest thing here, which gives it room to drift somewhere genuinely otherworldly. It is the track we would most like to see played to a festival crowd at dusk, the sort of song that would hold a field completely still.
The HU end HUN on ‘Second Face’, and after that long drift it arrives short and sharp. Best of all, the album signs off with a cheeky laugh, which is a lovely way to close a record this weighty.
Set against Rumble of Thunder, which was a strong record in its own right, HUN feels to us like the band leaning further back into their Mongolian sound. That is the version of The HU we have always found most compelling, and it is what makes this more than a heavy album with an unusual instrument list.
Because that is what HUN ultimately is. A brilliant heavy metal album, and one we would recommend without hesitation, particularly to anyone after something genuinely different from the rest of the pile. It will not stop you headbanging, and that is rather the point.
The HU return to the UK this autumn, opening in Glasgow on 29 September before dates in Bristol, Bournemouth, Newcastle, Belfast, Dublin, Birmingham, London’s O2 Academy Brixton, Manchester and Norwich across October, with SKÁLD in support.
Photo credit: Benjamin Dome, PhotographicGenius.com, @photographicgeniusofficial
