FATIMA - PRIMAL REVIEW-Apocalyptic, Absurd, and Catchy as hell—which is peak FATIMA. By Mark Jenkins.
FATIMA - PRIMAL REVIEW-Apocalyptic, Absurd, and Catchy as hell—which is peak FATIMA.
Black Robes Records, 2026
Ten years in the game and these Paris freaks are still cooking up the kind of grimy, hook-laden sludge that separates the heads from the hype-chasers. PRIMAL is FATIMA's fifth full-length, and fuck me if they haven't somehow gotten weirder and more focused at the same time.
If you've been sleeping on this trio since their 2016 Livyatan EP or somehow missed the slow-burn evolution from Moaner through Turkish Delights to last year's Eerie, here's what you need to know: FATIMA take the stoner-doom template, inject it with Seattle grunge's narcotic hooks, then run the whole thing through a post-punk filter that recalls Killing Joke's industrial throb. And just when you think you've got them figured out, guitarist/vocalist Antoine layers in these Middle Eastern and Indian melodies via Maxime's saz (Turkish lute) that shouldn't work but absolutely devastate.
PRIMAL strips things back to something more primal, yeah, but also more desperate. The Ice Age aesthetic isn't just window dressing—these eight tracks sound genuinely fucking cold, like watching civilisation collapse in slow motion while apes throw shit at zoo visitors. The title track opens with a Melvins-esque lumber before Antoine spits "Gather round my fellow primates / Let's have one final song and dance" over this churning doom riff that could level buildings. It's apocalyptic, absurd, and catchy as hell—which is peak FATIMA.
What keeps them relevant in a scene drowning in Sabbath worship and Electric Wizard clones is how they refuse to stay in one lane. These cats blend Boss HM-2 worship with Siouxsie's icy new wave, throw in stoner rock's psychedelic sprawl, then anchor everything with JC's caveman rhythms that hit like a mammoth's death throes. Recorded and mixed by Guillaume Doussaud at Swan Sound Studio, the production is appropriately grimy but doesn't sacrifice clarity—you can hear every fuzzed-out bass line, every reverb-drenched guitar squall.
Since going fully DIY with their Black Robes Records imprint, they've had complete control over their vision, and it shows. The hand-crafted monster figurines for each album cover (this time a prehistoric beast that looks ready to tear your throat out), the limited marble vinyl pressings, the direct fan connection—this is how you survive a decade in the underground without compromising.
FATIMA aren't trying to be the heaviest or the most "tr00." They're movie geeks, dinosaur nerds, cartoon freaks who happen to channel their obsessions into genuinely compelling doom-grunge that sounds like nothing else coming out of France right now. PRIMAL won't convert the cvlt police, but if you've ever wondered what would happen if Soundgarden covered The Cure while high on Ufomammut records, this is your jam.
Essential if you're into: Melvins, early Soundgarden, Turkish Delights (their best pre-PRIMAL cut, fight me), OM's meditative crush, anything on Riding Easy Records' Brown Acid comps.
9/10.
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