The Hu, courtesy Enkhbat Nyamkhishig.

This week’s picks include Mongolian metal by The HU, French pop by Hyphen Hyphen, American grunge by Greg Puciato, art punk by Rip Room, cheerful blues by G. Love and gothic country by Murder by Death.

The HU, “This Is Mongol” — Any new single by my close personal friends The HU (I interviewed them once, so it counts) gets a spot on this and any list. I’ve been a big fan of Mongolian folk metal since I first learned it existed, and The HU has taken the title from the late Nature Ganganbaigal as the pinnacle of the genre. And that was before the band’s upcoming album. If “This Is Mongol” is a preview of the evolution and refinement of its sound, I’m thrilled to see what’s next.

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Rip Room, “Dead When It Started” — On “Dead When It Started,” San Francisco band Rip Room sound like if you put Devo and Fugazi in a blender. That’s a serious compliment. With most of self-described punk bands doing their best Blink-182 impression or trying to make noise like Johnny Rotten without being Johnny Rotten, any and all bands taking the more cerebral art punk route are cause for celebration.

Hyphen Hyphen, “Don’t Wait For Me” — Our illustrious editor Roman Gokhman forwarded this one with a special recommendation, and while journalistic tradition is to always disagree with your editor, I couldn’t argue with him on this one. French trio Hyphen Hyphen elevates pop on “Don’t Wait For Me,” though we shouldn’t be surprised since the song was cowritten by Glen Ballard, who also co-wrote Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” and the entirety of Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill.

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G. Love, “Laughing in the Sunshine” — If you know of G. Love, it may likely be as frontman of G. Love and Special Sauce, the ’90s band that mixed blues, R&B and hip-hop-lite that enjoyed moderate success from college radio airplay and a single that broke through on MTV, back when they played music instead of 100-percent “Ridiculousness” reruns. “Laughing in the Sunshine” is nothing like that. Paradoxically a light, upbeat blues song, this G. Love solo track is nevertheless pretty great.

Murder by Death, “Never Be” — As soon as I heard “Never Be” I liked it, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. Eventually it clicked: It has the same general vibe as Johnny Cash’s American Recordings series. Not exactly, of course—nobody was, is, or will ever be Johnny Cash—but there’s some shared DNA. Upon further research I discovered that one of the genres Wikipedia lists for Murder by Death is “gothic country” and, yeah, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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Greg Puciato, “Never Wanted That” — Shoutout to former Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato for keeping grunge alive. “Never Wanted That” would have fit just fine in 1996 or 1997 alongside the second wave of grunge and, as always, I’m a big fan of anything that reminds me of my teen years. And speaking of lost arts, the song even has a guitar solo for a bridge! Be still, my heart.

Danny’s pick: This is my second Tuesday Tracks in a row where the pick of the week was a no-brainer. Last time it was a new song by Fantastic Negrito, who I’m a huge fan of, and this time it’s a new song by The HU, who I’m a huge fan of. Like every song by The HU, “This Is Mongol” makes you want to charge into battle on horseback while shouting at the top of your lungs. These days that’s something that comes in handy more than is probably healthy.

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.