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<\/p>\nTouring with familiar names like Five Finger Death Punch and Megadeth is a new and very different band. From landlocked Mongolia comes one of heavy metal\u2019s unlikeliest new groups, The HU. Combining the musical folklore of their native country with the fury, volume and intensity of heavy metal, The HU are connecting tradition and modernity, while breathing new life into an established musical genre.<\/p>\n
Casual observers should be cautioned against dismissing The HU as some kind of genre-mashup novelty; this outfit takes its cultural heritage very seriously. As Enkhsaikhan \u201cEnkush\u201d Batjargal explains with the help of a translator, \u201call of the members in the band are professional musicians who have a degree in their fields.\u201d He emphasizes that the members of The HU \u201chave exemplary knowledge toward traditional music as well as modern rock, opera, and every type of music there is.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Though it\u2019s largely unknown in the West, there\u2019s a proud tradition of bridging the gap between traditional Mongolian folk music and contemporary styles. Enkush explains that Mongolian bands like Egschiglen and Altan Urag were pioneers in that movement. \u201cWe grew up listening to them and were inspired,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Enkush is one of the four musicians in The HU who are out front onstage; he\u2019s joined by Temka on tovshhuur (Mongolian lute), Jaya on tsuur (flute) and Gala. Gala and Enkush both play the morin khuur, known in the West as a horsehead fiddle. The instrument looks like a lute but is played with a bow rather than being plucked or strummed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a horse fiddle soloist, it is an honor to play the most popular traditional Mongolian instrument,\u201d Enkush says, adding that his family and friends in Mongolia \u201cthink very highly of the fact that we are taking this music to the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Backing up the quartet for live dates are four additional musicians; they reinforce The HU\u2019s heavy metal textures, playing electric guitar, bass, drums and an enormous Mongolian percussion kit. The total effect is a melodic yet thunderous assault. Perhaps not coincidentally, the group\u2019s new album (out September 2) is titled Rumble of Thunder<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The HU\u2019s lyrics are unintelligible to most English speakers, but Enkush believes that audiences nonetheless pick up on the powerful messages in the group\u2019s music. The HU sing about \u201ccharacteristics that are missing in modern society,\u201d he explains. \u201cRespecting your elders, respecting nature, and having a balanced ecosystem. We put those messages in each of our tunes, and I think it has been succeeding.\u201d<\/p>\n
A sense of history is at the core of the group\u2019s music. While a Western perspective often paints 13th<\/sup> century emperor and warrior Genghis Khan as a villain, in Mongolia he\u2019s the country’s most revered historical figure. So it\u2019s not surprising that The HU\u2019s debut album, 2019\u2019s The Gereg<\/i> featured a single titled \u201cThe Great Chinggis Khaan.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gereg<\/i> charted in ten countries, and performed especially well in Austria, Switzerland and the UK. The group has been touring around the world, often to sell-out crowds. In recognition of their contributions to spreading Mongolian culture globally, The HU were awarded the country\u2019s highest award \u2013 fittingly enough, the Order of Ghenghis Khan \u2013 in 2019.<\/p>\n The band\u2019s name might seem a clever play on words, a nod to a certain British group \u2013 heroes to a generation and active to this day \u2013 who launched their career expressing a hope that they\u2019d die before they got old. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t intentional at all,\u201d Enkush insists, noting that Hu is short for Hunuu, \u201cone of the historical empires [conquered] by the Mongols.\u201d Hu is also the root for many words in the Mongolian language relating to humans, family, people and children. \u201cIt has lots of meaning, so we thought it was an awesome name,\u201d Enkush says.<\/p>\n All four of The HU\u2019s primary musicians are vocalists as well; they\u2019re practitioners of Mongolian throat singing, an ancient technique that produces otherworldly overtones. When it\u2019s suggested that there\u2019s a surface similarity between throat singing and the \u201charsh vocals\u201d of Scandinavian black metal bands, Enkush is dismissive. While harsh vocals can be traced back to mid 1980s \u201cViking metal\u201d band Bathory, throat singing \u201chas been used in the high mountains of Mongolia ever since the start of human history,\u201d Enkush says. It was developed by imitating natural sounds \u201csuch as wind, water, and the screams of mountain lions.\u201d<\/p>\n And the combination of that kind of vocal technique meshes seamlessly with the metallic instrumental roar of The HU. \u201cYou can’t explain it, but it sounds like something very familiar and powerful,\u201d Enkush says with a sly grin. \u201cYou understand that, in nature, it\u2019s usually predators [who] have that kind of sound.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Touring with familiar names like Five Finger Death Punch and Megadeth is a new and very different band. From landlocked Mongolia comes one of heavy metal\u2019s unlikeliest new groups, The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23622,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,46,49],"tags":[4915],"class_list":["post-23621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-metal","category-new-release","tag-the-hu","cat-41-id","cat-46-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23621"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23623,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23621\/revisions\/23623"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}