Have you heard music like this before? Music that makes you want to pound your way out through heavy surf while taking six on the head, or straightline a chute high in the mountains. That probably wasn’t what The HU was thinking about when it created its unique brand of heavy metal music featuring guitars and traditional Mongolian chanting mixed with native instrumentation, but it all works together rather seamlessly and might inspire you to get out there now.
The HU has garnered more than nine million views on its two YouTube videos. People are listening. But how did heavy metal infiltrate Mongolia, you ask?
When the Soviet Union crumbled, Western influence flooded into the country between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Mongolian musicians apparently preserved old traditions while weaving in new ones, Thalea Stokes, a University of Chicago ethnomusicology doctoral student, told NPR music. Well, the sound works, and it has a lot of people pumped on Mongolian heavy metal.
