Style: Progressive Death Metal, Raw Black Metal (Mixed Vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Opeth, Enslaved, Agalloch
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 22 May 2026

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Rawness, sonically and performatively, helps preserve a level of artistic sincerity that directly translates to emotional impact, for both the performer and their audience; for instance, Agalloch’s The Mantle relies on many small imperfections to make the album sound so timelessly human. I think that The Curse Is Broken, debut album by one-man Christian metal project Under the Myrtle, was produced with a similar principle. Without the talent of Agalloch, however, Under the Myrtle’s album is painfully fallible, without any endearing songwriting or performances. The Curse Is Broken is too sincere.

The sole redeeming auditory factor of The Curse Is Broken is the acoustic guitar; the rustic strumming is pleasant, often elegant in its simplicity. The acoustic guitar anchors the songwriting, each twist and turn of extreme metal eventually finding its way back to an unplugged motif. I admit that I have no clue how to produce music, but I’m positive I could coax better sounds out of an instrument on my first time opening Reaper than Under the Myrtles produces anything besides the acoustic guitar on The Curse Is Broken. The mix—so raw that the production would only truly be enjoyed by an early 1990s black metal tape enthusiast—is centered around the ugly distortion of electric guitar. The riffs, seemingly inspired by early Opeth, sound off key most of the time. Under the Myrtles also provides hushed growls, woefully poor—albeit genuine—cleans, frail programmed drumming, and, on occasion, subdued backing synths (“Salvation of Your Anointed,” “Sow of Tears,” “Man of Suffering”). None of these instruments or performances have any warmth, and the record sounds hollow as a result, with nothing but the buzz of distortion filling the space between the instruments.

All seven of the lengthy tracks on The Curse Is Broken meander through metal and acoustic sections at will, rarely coalescing into anything noteworthy. “Man of Suffering” features the best metal part of the album because the drums stop playing at a mid-tempo slog, giving the moment some gravitas, while the guitar’s incessant blare takes on a trumpet-like quality. Lots would need to change for The Curse Is Broken to be even mediocre, but varying up the bland drum patterns with some blast beats or sobering up the drunken rhythms and angular guitar melodies would be first up. Next up would be fixing the clean singing. The vocals are honest as he sings about his religion—if honesty may be used as a euphemism for tone-deaf. Under the Myrtles does try harmonizing with several layers of his voice, even moving some of the vocal parts into the other channel, but once you’ve lost track of a single melodic line, stacking them becomes an impossible task. 

Under the Myrtles’s heart could have been laid out on the record, but I’ll never know to what extent because of the unrefinedness of the music and awful production. On a more competent album, the ringing guitar part at four minutes into “The Fall” might be evocative of a soul crying out in anguish—the sort of raw feel on display the best bands can get away with by virtue of it standing out amidst the polished final product. The same sort of missed note that might hit the feels for a great artist, though, makes my soul wince on The Curse Is Broken; unfortunately, my soul does not wince with the artist, but at him. When every note is played poorly, nothing hits hard, no matter how authentically performed.

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Recommended tracks: Salvation of Your Anointed, Man of Suffering
You may also like: Marlugubre, Esox, In the Woods…
Final verdict: 3/10

Related links: Bandcamp

Label: Independent

Under the Myrtles is:
– anonymous (everything)