Album Review: The Hu – Rumble of Thunder (and new video for “Bie Biyelegee”!)

Despite being pretty impressed with what I’ve heard of The Hu over recent years, this is the first time I’ve sat and listened through an entire album-worth of their material. I have an idea of what to expect – impressive rock/metal with a heavy dollop of Mongolian folk music. I mean, what’s not to love?

The thing that strikes me most after a couple of playthroughs is that The Hu know how to write a good, catchy tune. You can ignore the novelty value of the additional instruments (though you shouldn’t) and just enjoy tapping your toe or nodding your head to the simplistic delights of “This Is Mongol” or “Sell The World”. For some reason I was expecting more of a metal album, I think partly due to the band’s warrior imagery, whereas it’s definitely more of a rocker. Hell, take the Mongolian influences out and there’s a lot of similarities to southern rock bordering on country!

Things get a bit bouncy with “Bii Biyelgee”, the video for which you can check out below. It’s a real bopper! Conversely, the stock ballad that must be present on every rock album is “Mother Nature”, a slow and ethereal number.

It is the addition of so many unusual, to me, instruments which gives the band and the album a real sense of originality. With eight members, there’s a lot going on at times but it never seems too busy, or as if an instrument is being used for the sake of it. They do more than just add a novel flair, they’re mixed well and bring an extra dimension to each song.

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It takes a lot to have a truly original sound in this day and age and there are other Mongolian rock/metal bands out there (though one fewer since the sad passing of Nature Ganganbaigal in 2019), but none sound like The Hu. They pretty much manage to hit a 50/50 split between rock music and Mongolian folk. A tricky balance, but they’ve nailed it. Rumble of Thunder isn’t just a good listen, it’s an intriguing one as well.

UK / IE tour dates 2022

  • 28 Nov – Manchester / Academy
  • 30 Nov – Leeds / Stylus
  • 01 Dec – Nottingham / Rock City
  • 02 Dec – Cardiff / Great Hall
  • 03 Dec – Birmingham / O2 Institute
  • 05 Dec – Dublin / 3Olympia
  • 06 Dec – Belfast / Ulster Hall
  • 07 Dec – SWG3 Poetry Club / Glasgow
  • 09 Dec – Roundhouse / London

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Rumble of Thunder is out today

Check out all the bands we review in 2022 on our Spotify and YouTube playlists!

The Hu: official | facebook | twitter | instagram | spotify | youtube

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June 9, 2024 11:05 PM

[…] of which we’ve been treated to a lot over the years. Bloodywood‘s Indian tones, The Hu mixing Mongolian music in with their metal, Ryujin’s Japanese material that we were […]