Back in 2001 there was a joke on Frasier in which Niles was desperate to attend a four-hour concert by a Mongolian throat singer. He eventually gave the tickets to Frasier so he could take his girlfriend to see Billy Joel instead.
As ever, the greatest television show ever made was ahead of its time.
Because here we are in 2026, with Mongolian throat singing not merely escaping the confines of a sitcom punchline but echoing around Knebworth as The HU guest with Iron Maiden. With HUN, their third album, they sound primed to take on the rest of the planet too.
“Warrior Chant” immediately brings to mind the first time you heard Sepultura’s “Roots” 30 years ago. Not because the two sound identical, but because there is that same sense of encountering something genuinely new: ancient traditions colliding with modern metal in a way that feels instinctive rather than calculated.
“Lost Soul” features NOTHING MORE, and the contrast between the American band’s polished contemporary rock and The HU’s utterly distinctive sound is stark. Somehow, though, it works. As Paula Abdul once wisely observed, opposites attract, and the two sides meet somewhere in the middle without either having to compromise what makes them interesting.
There is a pronounced folk element to “The Men”, but the guitars, the rhythmic force and the sheer conviction of its delivery are pure metal. That is the beauty of The HU. Whatever instruments or traditions they bring into the music, it never feels like a novelty act dressing up rock songs. This is simply how their metal sounds.
“Echoes Of My Father” is ominous and foreboding. I have absolutely no idea what is being sung, but the meaning somehow comes through regardless. Oddly, it is often the quieter songs on HUN that feel the heaviest. The space around the vocals creates a tension that another barrage of riffs could never achieve.
“Shadow” has a wonderful groove and feels built for the stage. You can already imagine the crowd moving with it, the chant rising above the instruments and the whole thing becoming even more powerful in a live setting.
Then “Horsemen” gallops into view. The riffs are superb, the momentum relentless, but it is the cinematic turns the song takes that make it truly sensational. The HU do not merely write songs; they create landscapes. You can almost picture armies crossing plains, dust rising beneath thousands of hooves.
“Greed” soars like an arena rocker, proving again that metal is a universal language. The harmonies are huge, the chorus is made for enormous crowds and the strange, quasi-rapped section at the end adds another unexpected twist. The HU could easily settle into a formula by now. Instead, they keep finding new places to take their sound.
“The Real You” introduces double-kick drums straight out of thrash metal, while the violin would make Jethro Tull blush. It should be a collision of elements that refuses to make sense, yet The HU have become masters at welding apparently incompatible sounds together until they appear entirely natural.
The way “Grey Hun” builds is genuinely compelling. It begins with restraint, allowing the atmosphere to develop before steadily becoming something larger and more imposing. There is patience in the arrangement, but also the knowledge that the destination will be worth the journey.
“Universe” has perhaps the most pronounced cinematic quality of all. It feels like the soundtrack to a film we cannot see, full of dramatic shifts and widescreen ambition. There is a progressive feel to it too, with ideas developing and changing rather than simply repeating until the song ends.
That leaves “Second Face”, which can only really be described as a Mongolian hoedown. It brings HUN to a close with energy, personality and the sense that The HU are enjoying every second of what they have created.
Genuinely new, genuinely exciting and wholly original, HUN is the work of a band whose cultural roots have become the foundation for something with truly worldwide potential. Metal is a universal language, and nothing underlines that better than The HU.
Rating: 8.5/10
