Try as I might to remain impartial while approaching _The Minstrel's Curse_, there is no getting away from two facts: that regardless of the names they choose, this duo remains connected in my mind to their work in Empyrium; and that I found their first effort as Noekk, titled _The Grimalkin_, a rather frustrating affair. Both of these are unfortunate facts, because _The Minstrel's Curse_ is about as far from Empyrium's sound and feel as it can be, and given the adventurous nature of the music, there is no reason why Noekk shouldn't be able to achieve better results now than they did first time around. You have been warned, so that you may dismiss this review if none of the above applies to you.

In my case, it didn't take long to start suspecting that what ailed _The Grimalkin_ might also be _The Minstrel's Curse_'s curse, so to speak. The music, with all of its traditional and progressive heavy metal along with other more eclectic elements, simply fails to convey much to the listener. Much as Noekk may string together musically irreproachable passages, they never mean more than they strictly should as a sequence, never transcend into something that really affects and captures the listener. This is my main problem with _The Minstrel's Curse_, as it was with _The Grimalkin_; it may not have been made to sound consistent and steady to begin with, but to me it fails to come across as more than a collation of passages that as an album fail to overcome a feeling of disaffection.