Music is a world language. Words might not interchange, but the beat of the drum, the roll of the bassline and the highs and lows translate through culture. You can take any particular genre of music and go to different points on the Earth and you’ll get different flavors. Look at rock music…from the soaring, symphonic styles that come out of northern Europe and Scandinavia to the technologically driven forms that come from Japan and the sledgehammer-effective Aussie stuff, it’s heavy music, but it’s all different, with each form bringing an independent flavor. But there’s one thing that a lot of these bands have in common: the instruments.

Then there’s The Hu, a band that has been making strides recently. They’ve popped up on my radar recently and there’s no denying that the band, which hails from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, is unique among their peers. For starters, there’s the throat singing, which layers multiple pitches of noise from the same singer. Then there are the instruments, which are mostly traditional bits such as the morin khuur, the Jaw harp, the tsuur, and the flute. Additionally, drums and other percussion and a bass are brought in. The effect is haunting, seemingly otherworldly compared to what’s out there now. In their original format, The Hu come across as a folk group that can jam. But lately, they’ve been re-working some of their material and have been bringing in established names from the rock community to help them reach a broader audience. In this case, they tapped Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix to act as a kind of translator, much as they did with their surprise YouTube hit “Yuve Yuve Hu” and From Ashes to New frontman Danny Case.

Take a listen and see what you think: