The Hu
Hun
It used to be said that The Who were the loudest band in the world. The Hu—the homophonically-named Mongolian folk-metal band—have similar decibels from the noise around them. During their first two albums, The Hu always seemed to be doing something exciting. They contributed to The Metallica Blacklist; they wrote original music for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order; they rubbed shoulders with every big metal band in the world. All the while, their music is a product of ancient Mongolian instruments, throat-singing, and songwriting primarily in their native tongue.
However, while Hun is a bit of a weaker entry, it’s not a case of the ‘gimmick’ drying up. While that continues to define The Hu, it’s going to keep being the best thing about them. It’s responsible for the atmosphere on Greed and Universe, and the very open sounds that begin Echoes Of My Father. At its best, Hun has a chill to it, and a slower, mistier feel befitting of sonorous vocal harmonies and the twang of instruments totally alien to Western ears. It does feel authentic, not just in its sense of place (Ulaanbaatar is actually the coldest national capital in the world, fact fans), but in how deeply tradition shapes what The Hu do.
And then, when Western metal is brought in, that’s bulldozed away almost immediately. Hun, as a result, can feel stunted in a way that a lot of folk-metal doesn’t, especially that with a distinct cultural identity. It shouldn’t be so easy for Jonny Hawkins to hijack Lost Soul and turn it into a Nothing More song, but he does. As for tracks like Shadow and Grey Hun, the ‘normal’ metal they implement sounds like a flattened-out Rammstein. The intrigue is sucked clean away, as The Hu get usurped with little resistance. Bear in mind, this is a band whose vocals will frequently take the form of throaty snarls and rasps, built from a language with next to no reference point to their English-speaking listeners, and they can somehow wind up uninteresting.
A good compromise doesn’t come until the very end with Second Face. It, too, is built on a pretty rudimentary chug, but the twangs and croaks and mischievous cackles shape it to something more loose and wry. It’s an example of how both sides of The Hu can work for the other’s benefit, something that Hun can stand to work on. There’s still a charm to The Hu being exactly like no one else in contemporary mainstream metal, but that influence continuing to tear through their work, who’s to say how long that’ll last. U just ok, Hun.
For fans of: Metallica, Ensiferum, Korpiklaani
‘Hun’ by The Hu is out now on Better Noise Records.
Mayday Parade
Sugar
Has this ‘three albums in two years’ thing for Mayday Parade worked? Like, does anyone think more highly of them as a creative force because of it? Probably not; they’ve not given you much reason to. Rather, the aim seems to be, after over 20 years as a band and a plethora of nonplussed shrugs at their recent output, proving that their late-2000s pop-rock is still on the table. For a band already reliant on nostalgia to even stand upright, it’s about the most that Mayday Parade can reasonably do. It’s also why both Sweet and Sad could be summed up in their entirety as “This sure is a Mayday Parade album!” So, what of the trilogy closer, Sugar? Well…this sure is a Mayday Parade album!
The strongest emotion produced is the perplexity of what releasing three albums achieves in the first place. Sugar is effectively identical to its siblings in form—mild, sunset-lit pop-rock with one track of emo balladry and another with an awkwardly long name. Averaging the trio out into one more succinct release wouldn’t have been a tall order, though this one probably is the best of them. Its easygoing, Floridian warmth is what you’d typically associate with Mayday Parade, and tuning it into some melancholy like on Weekend Music and Two Hearts gets even closer to the waterline. Even if their sentimentality has done less and less with age (hi, Blame It On The Youth), Mayday Parade are unobjectionable here.
…and that’s about it. There’s a few nice hooks and a pleasantly temperate feel to how this is produced, but that’s the extent of what Sugar has to offer. It’s also all that Sweet and Sad had to offer, but it’s perhaps more noteworthy on something that’s so A Lesson In Romantics-lite. That album, for as rooted to its era as it is, features Mayday Parade’s most memorable songs, and Sugar just…doesn’t. Its biggest failing, ultimately, is that it hasn’t had two decades worth of exposure to create its reputation, and never produces much reason to convince you that it will. Even if it’s never bad, it’s too pedestrian to be impressive. Two close-to-identical other albums releasing mere months before don’t help either, believe it or not.
And yet, to call Mayday Parade’s year-and-change-long project a failure feels a bit mean. They’re about as harmless as pop-rock of the era comes, and although they’ve vastly overestimated themselves, that hasn’t changed. There’s no maliciousness to how unimpressive Sugar is; it’s just what it is. That’s an alright-enough place to be in, at least in the sense that it matches Mayday Parade’s brand. You probably won’t remember Sugar (just as you won’t Sweet or Sad), but for the superfans who’ve actually seen this run till the end, you also won’t regret your time with it. In other words, it sure is a Mayday Parade album!
For fans of: The Maine, Yellowcard, We The Kings
‘Sugar’ by Mayday Parade is out now on MHE Records.
Mimi Barks
Dreamstate Of Fear
THIS IS DOOM TRAP was a really interesting large-scale introduction to Mimi Barks. It scored the tenets of its titular genre well, full of heavy, aggressive atmosphere with a very contemporary sound for the time. If the nu-gen soloists of the first half of the 2020s wanted to portray an edge, Barks actually had one, and one of her own, at that. So what happened here?
If there were ever a uniqueness to root for in Barks, it’s more or less gone on Dreamstate Of Fear. ‘Doom trap’ evidently wasn’t built to last now that it’s morphed into more modern alt-metal gruel, almost bled dry of its former personality. Compared the opening almost-title-track Dreamstate Of Hell from anything on the last album, and the decline is stark. Trap beats remain, only meeker and used to supplement the gurning guitar instead of the other way around. Moving on to Jericho and Butterfly In Chains, they’re even more tightly locked into the alt-metal shtick; whatever ‘doom trap’ was is mere window dressing.
Needless to say, it goes in one ear and right back out the other. Barks isn’t a gifted-enough performer to elevate this above being runoff, either in singing or rapping, and themes of colliding negative emotions are hardly outside the box. Power durch Verrat is the closest to something new, being performed in Barks’ native German, but even then, the shape of the language is its only true defining trait. Oh, and there’s also an interlude and outro track that provide literally nothing, as if expectations for something more weren’t being quashed enough on this EP.
It’s just not very satisfying, at the end of the day. Even if THIS IS DOOM TRAP wasn’t your cup of tea, it gave the impression of Mimi Barks having an idea or two of her own; Dreamstate Of Fear lacks the impulse to even presume that. There’s no excitement or furious catharsis to something so pedestrian, as it trudges along without even all the much of an end goal. At least it’s only an EP, and not a full album’s promise of an even longer, more interminable disappointment..
For fans of: Harpy, Knife Bride, DeathbyRomy
‘Dreamstate Of Fear’ by Mimi Barks is out now.
Words by Luke Nuttall
