Album Review: Maatkare – Rise to Power (Self Released)

A unique force in the death metal scene, Maatkare proudly boasts and all-female line-up. It sees vocalist Janneke de Rooy (Beyond the Pale), guitarist Georgia Bell (Ex Pretty Little Enemy, session guitarist for Harper), and bassist Amie Chatterley (Dakesis, WomenOwar) bringing their collective talents together to create a powerful, history-infused musical experience.

Maatkare’s debut album ‘Rise to Power’ blends death metal with the raw intensity of Egyptian history and mythology, all from a fierce, feminine perspective. It will be released on October 18th, 2024.

At its core, what we have here is a noisy blast of intense death metal and it just so happens that Maatkare are very good at making quite a racket. The Egyptian thing is interesting as it gives Maatkare’s sound a Nile vibe (who the band do cite as an inspiration), but the angle they are coming from is both fresh and exciting. Where a track as mean as War Before Peace gets the blood pumping through veins and is liable to leave many with severe neck ache already.

This trio sound great together, harmonising their heaviness perfectly, and no track on this album is a better example of this than the title track. Not just because it features guest solos from Prika Amaral of Nervosa and Phoenix van der Weiden, but because it pays tribute to one of history’s most formidable female figures, Pharaoh Hatshepsut (Maatkare). It’s as beast of a track, wild and ferocious, but with a stance that showcases strength and power.

A stance that only grows more and more majestic as the album goes on. Long Live the Queen, May the Gods Bear Witness, and the title track bringing equal amounts of dark and devious heaviness born from a traditional style of death, but twisted by a shared willingness to have some groove. Few bands have the ability to sound like each member is bringing the best out of the others and few bands within the death metal world can be this consistent across an album’s runtime. Rise to Power starts off hot and stays that way right up to end.

Heads will continue to be banged hard as the epitome of death and destruction comes in the form of Judgement Day and Black Death. The former is wickedly fast and furious, whereas the latter delivers crunching mania that feels deliciously evil. This excellent debut then capped off with Realm of the Dead, one final explosive blast of death metal ruthlessness that has an exceptional layer of creative atmosphere running through it. Maatkare putting the emphatic stamp on their heavy credentials to silence any critic stupid enough to question them. Death metal has a new band to be reckoned with and based off this record, they could be giants.

Maatkare – Rise to Power Track Listing:

1. War Before Peace
2. Rise To Power
3. Long Live the Queen
4. May The Gods Bear Witness
5. Maatkare
6. Judgement Day
7. Black Death
8. Realm of the Dead

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