The ESP Guitar Company

As musicians, all of us keep our ears open for new sounds that excite and inspire us. It was at a recent festival concert that we saw this precise reaction as hundreds of people jammed themselves in front of the stage when Mongolian folk metal band The Hu started their show. What could be more different from the standard metal band setup than a band that includes ancient Asian instrumentation including the Morin Khuur, Tsuur, Tovshuur, along with the guttural tones of Mongolian throat singing? The Hu takes these traditional elements and combines them with contemporary metal sounds via the guitar and bass work of the two newest members of the ESP artist family, Jamba and Davaa.

The Hu was founded in 2016 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and immediately grabbed people's attention with their culturally influenced sound that was unlike anything else. Their debut album, 2019‘s The Gereg, debuted at #1 on the World Album and Top New Artist Charts, generating over 250 million combined streams and video views to date. Some of the critical acclaim they've received have come from media including Billboard, NPR, GQ, The Guardian, The Independent, Revolver, and even Sir Elton John. More recently, the band received praise from fans and critics for their Mongolian rendition of Metallica’s “Sad But True,” which Metallica picked up on and invited them to record "Through The Never" for their Metallica Blacklist album released in 2021.

The Hu's new album Rumble of Thunder was just released on September 2, and the band is out on tour in support of Megadeth. You'll likely see Jamba and Davaa playing their LTD Deluxe EC-1000 EverTune and LTD AP-5 bass. To hear more from The Hu and learn more about their uniquely heavy sound, visit their official website.