With its yurt-friendly rolling hills and ties to spirituality, the Glastonbury festival should be the perfect environment for Mongolian sensations The Hu, but this live album tells a different story.
They're an electrifying band, but Live At Glastonbury, originally released as a limited edition Record Store Day set, feels heavy-handed, as if they've been instructed to make things 'more metal' and swapped beauty for bombast.
Maybe it's all that touring with labelmates Megadeth and Five Finger Death Punch, maybe it's the BBC mix, but the morin-khuur (horsehead violin) seems to have ceded ground to overdriven guitar and thudding drums, and The Hu sound less like folk-metal Shamen on the bridleway to transcendence and more like Rammstein.
A cover of Metallica's Through The Never keeps the thump to a maximum, but even the seal-clubbing sound can't spoil the wonderful Yuve Yuve Yu or Wolf Totem.
