Doomed Confessionary: Antoine (Fátima)

Fátima is a three-piece doom-grunge band based in Paris, France.

This year marks the band’s tenth anniversary, and Fátima’s new album, »Primal«, synthesizes all of their past passions while incorporating some fresh flavors!

Fátima has always had a passion for oriental melodies, doom metal, grunge, the Melvins and The Cure, 60’s monster movies, those gross cartoons from the 90’s, dinosaurs, and movie monsters in general.

This time, Fátima makes a comeback with an eight-track album that features stoner-doom riffs, post-punk bass lines and choruses, Melvins-esque breaks in the middle of most songs, and even a tentative attempt to create a fucked-up, suspicious-looking, doomy pop anthem.

The entire album features an “Ice Age” and “Prehistoric” aesthetic and themes, whether in the cover art, song titles, or lyrics, which are half ridiculous, half gloomy, as is customary with the band, but this time more despairing and apocalyptic than ever before.

»Primal« is scheduled for release on February 3th, 2026 via the band’s own imprint Black Robes Records.

Can you please say a few words about your band?
Antoine: Hi Bojan, and thanks for the ITW!

Fátima is a three piece hard rock band heavily influenced by doom metal, the “Seattle grunge” scene from the 90’s and post-punk new wave bands such as Killing Joke, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and The Cure. We also have a taste for oriental-indian melodies and are kind of movie geeks, and video game and comics geeks.

All those elements blend together in our songs. I guess If there’s something we love dearly, weither it be a band, a theme, an exotic instrument, a movie reference, a monster or whatever, it ends up in our music!

We’re French, but we don’t like bechamel and snails that much.

JC plays the drums, Maxime plays the bass and the Saz (a Turkish lute) and I play guitar and sings.

We like to craft our artworks ourselves, and each one of our album cover showcases a handmade figurine of a particular monster of sorts (Dinosaur, Alien, Sassquatch…) very reminiscent of old movie monsters seen in the movies of Ray Harryhausen.

What was the biggest challenge for the band?
Antoine: Well, there’re a lot of challenges on the way when you try to survive as a band.

Fátima was born 10 years ago, but prior to that we played together in a pre-Fátima band called Crabs.

The only way to survive is to stay constant and keep on playing music that we like and consider good, and if we like what we play, maybe it will please people along the way!

Since the last album, we’ve become our own little structure and the three of us are the only ones to handle distribution, worldwide shipping, artwork creation and music production via our label Black Robes Records and the Fátima website (crafted by JC!).

That way, we’re in direct contact with our fans and we are very grateful for this. So we tend to spoil our fans as much as possible, with limited colored vinyls, collectible cards and T-shirt and lot of exclusive goodies. We’re small, but dedicated, and very DIY in our creative approach. The biggest difficulty has always been booking concerts though.

What can you be most proud of so far?
Antoine: I’m really proud that we are still evolving sonically as a band, and that we’re still here with a 5th album, the three of us, surviving in this hostile world!

On each album, there’s always one or two songs that I like very much when I think about it, years later (»Charioteer«, »Jane Mary«, »Concubines Of Salem«, »Turkish Delights«, »Arch-Vile«, »Miracle Of The Sun«).

But this time, with »Primal« it’s the first time that I’m really proud of one of our album as a whole! It’s the first time I can go back to one of our album with complete satisfaction, without nit-picking on defaults, without regrets.

Guillaume Doussaud (sound engineer on »Primal«) made a stellar job on capturing the rawness of our live sound. The album sounds heavy and powerful and I like how the album flows, from start to finish. You never know how people will receive a new album though, but I like it a lot!

What was your biggest regret?
Antoine: I have no regret whatsoever when it comes to our music and albums. They have defects here and there sure, but I love them all for their aspirities.

If I had given up on music 10 years ago, finding a boring job that pays well (as if it was even possible) then I’ll have regrets right now. I guess I’ll have (maybe) more money now, but I would be so full of regrets for not having pursuing my music aspirations that I would feel sick In my stomach.

My biggest recent regret is that we once trusted someone who promised us a tour and that person never delivered. We had to say no to a lot opportunities because of that and it’s fucking bullshit. But it’s okay. We’ll “keep on keeping on”. We always do.

What was the best concert/tour so far and why?
Antoine: Probably the whole Italian tour a few years ago thanks to Alessandra from Red Myst Booking! Thanks a lot Alessandra, hope you’re doing well.

Also the gig at the Black Bass festival near Bordeaux was pretty impressive for us (we played in front of a thousand persons or so, pretty cool).

And then there’s countless memorable chaotic gigs in Paris! One of the best was with Opium Lord (UK) at Le Buzz near Belleville. They were heavy as fuck and loved eating French ham.

What was the biggest surprise on the music scene for you?
Antoine: We had plenty of bad surprises along the way concerning the “music scene” but I’m in a good mood today so fuck that, let’s talk about what’s positive instead.

The first surprise and the best one was that…there was a “doom-noise” scene in Paris at all! At least when we began to look for gigs in Paris around 2014-2015. We made friends with a lot of bands and quickly decided to approach venues together, with an already made Plateau.

I’m talking about our dear friends from Lord Humungus, Cerbere, Clegane, Tyromancers, Gneiss Rock, Seum, and all the ones I might have forgotten along the way.

That way we managed to find gigs more and more, things we were unable to do when we were alone, by ourselves, and we manage to invite new bands and to form a community of heavy bands in Paris. Since then, a lot of places in Paris where we could play have closed but we’re still friends with each other and play together several times a year, in Paris of elsewhere.

Actually our next gig, the »Primal« release party in Montreuil on Feb 28th, will be a shared scene with Clegane and the Tyromancers!

What is currently in your heavy musical rotation?
Antoine: High On Fire ~ »Cometh The Storm«, Melvins ~ »Thunderball«, Conan ~ »Violent Dimension«, Malemort & Cerbère ~ »Aimless-Glace Mère«, Slayer ~ »World Painted Blood«, The Wytches ~ »Talking Machine«, The Cure ~ »The Cure« (2004).

What was the best advice you’ve ever been given as a musician?
Antoine: Practice your guitar everyday, always try to compose new stuff whenever you touch your guitar, don’t give too much of a fuck about what naysayers might think about you, do not care for music Theory, experiment with open tunings, always listen to you dear bandmates friends ideas as they always make the songs better.

What are your guilty pleasures?
Antoine: The Michael Bay Transformers movies, all of them.
Star wars the Phantom Menace and Attack of the clones.
The James Cameron Avatar saga. (Space Dragons vs helicopters? What’s not to like?!)
The Hobbit Trilogy.
»Batman and Robin« and »Running Man« with Arnold Schwartzenneger.
»Over The Top« and »Cliffhanger« with Sly.
The Ace Ventura movies.
Killing Joke’s »Brighter Than A Thousand Suns« album.
ID Software’s »DOOM 3«.
Lana del Rey’s cover of »Heart-Shaped Box«.
Nachos, tortillas and spicy sauce that set my ring on fire.

Can you say something more about the current music scene in Paris?
Antoine: Paris has become a poshed ass city where almost no one wants to hear noise and live music no more.

People live in the center of a capital city and yet all they want is to watch Netflix with a cammomille and if they hear any noise coming out from the concerts pub in their neighborhood, they’ll sue the bar owners. So now most of the bars don’t do concerts no more, only DJ sets, and it’s understandable but so lame.

Then you have the big venues, the big concert halls, but they are only accessible to the professional musicians you know, the top dogs, the Dobermans. Us, we are Pomeranians, not Dobermans.

Finding gigs is always a challenge. In France at least. But we keep on searching and booking small venues, and hopefully we will be able to tour in other european countries in the future, and do small metal festivals (we toured Italy once thanks to a great person and it was GREAT!).

Right now, in France, we tend to play outside of Paris any time it’s possible for us (Lille, Amiens, Nantes, Lyon, Bordeaux, Reims) and its great!

Where can we see you live this year (concerts/tours)?
Antoine: This year we will do our release party in Montreuil on Feb 28 (Le Chinois) will play in Paris on April 22 (Cirque Electrique) and In Lille (High Voltage) on April 23. More to come later.

What are your plans for the future as a band?
Antoine: Keep on playing live, hopefully do more festivals and tours. We’ll keep on recording music and experiment! Our next album will have a brand new approach.

How can people best support your band?
Antoine: The best way to support us is to buy our limited collector merch on our website/label store: fatimadoom.com.

We ship worldwide, and everything is very collector and made with care (marble colored vinyls with collectible cards, serigraphed T-shirts made in bio cotton with artworks hand-drawned by us etc…).

We don’t make a living out of our music but everything we earn will help us fund our next recording session and vinyl pressing!

Then you can follow us on the social media, on Instagram and of course come to see us live whenever possible and talk about us to your friends!

Do you have any message for your listeners?
Antoine: For our long time hard-core fans, thanks you so much! Without you we could not keep on going, you’re the reason we hang on and it’s always a cathartic moment to play live in front of you, whenever we can! You are our “miracle of the sun”.

For our new listeners, we hope you’ll enjoy our blend of flavours, doomy-grungy-new wavy-Arabic ambiances and the hand-made monsters on our album covers!

Can’t wait to meet you at a future gig and have a pint with you.

Links:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube

Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well