INTERVIEW
ABSTRACTED MIND on Building an Identity Beyond “Break Down Your Fears”
Symphonic metal, fears, identity, transformation, independence
With “Break Down Your Fears”, ABSTRACTED MIND bring a series of individually released songs together as a complete album. Their move from Argentina to the Netherlands, their classical music backgrounds and their approach to combining metal with orchestral arrangements all inform the band's developing identity. In this conversation with Juli and Yamil, we discuss how the album's themes emerged organically, why visual storytelling matters to their music, and how they approach independent production, artistic decisions and the use of artificial intelligence.
“Break Down Your Fears” is now available as a complete album after several songs were introduced individually. Once you heard the finished record as a whole, did its meaning change for you compared with the way you understood these songs while they were being written and released separately?
“Break Down Your Fears” was not conceived as a conceptual album; however, it explores common themes and, in that way, we think that each song helps to build our own universe and identity as a band. In fact, we didn’t think of that when we wrote the songs; it was something that came up organically.
ABSTRACTED MIND developed from a studio-based project into a live band. Beyond the obvious difference of being able to perform the songs on stage, what did becoming a live band teach you about which parts of your music actually work — or do not work — outside the studio?
As we both (Juli and Yamil) already had experience with previous bands and projects, and also because of our studies at the music conservatory, we always compose the songs with the possibility of playing them live in mind. And as we both are multi-instrumentalists, we composed the songs within the capabilities of what we could play, so there was not much to change when we became a full live band.
Both you and Yamil have classical music backgrounds. When you are writing for ABSTRACTED MIND today, where does that training still influence your decisions, and where have you deliberately moved away from classical approaches in order to serve the needs of metal?
Metal and classical music have more in common than people usually think! But when we write the metal parts, it’s more about our influences within the genre than about thinking in terms of music theory. We listen to a lot of different genres, both within and outside of metal, so that gives us a lot of room for exploration.
“Metal and classical music have more in common than people usually think!”
“Break Down Your Fears” repeatedly explores fear, identity, memory and self-confrontation. Did you begin the album with a clearly defined conceptual framework, or did these themes gradually reveal themselves as the songs accumulated?
It was not planned that way. We didn’t decide beforehand to talk about these particular themes, but while we were writing the songs, we realized that we wanted to communicate a message and point at things that may be a hard pill to swallow, but necessary to address.
“Shattered Mirror” uses a particularly elaborate visual narrative rather than simply presenting the band performing the song. What made this song require a cinematic interpretation, and how important is visual storytelling to the way you want people to experience ABSTRACTED MIND?
While I was writing the lyrics for “Shattered Mirror”, I was imagining the whole story, and from that moment on, I had the idea for the video in my mind. Then I left the technicalities to Yamil haha! For us, visuals are also a very important part of Abstracted Mind, and that’s why all our previous singles were released with official videos. This is something that we are also passionate about and one of our main ways of consuming music ourselves. So it is very important for us to express ourselves that way too!
“Rise Again” approaches the subject of fear from a different emotional position, focusing more strongly on recovery and determination. Did writing that song change your understanding of what the album ultimately wanted to say about overcoming fear?
“Rise Again” was written way before we started thinking about the album. In fact, the original lyrics were in Spanish. It comes from a very personal and intimate moment in my life when I decided to give myself some hope. Our decision to include this song in the album was to provide some shelter for the ones who are getting through difficult times, and to let them know that no matter how deep down your rabbit hole you are, there’s always a way to get out of there.
“Our decision to include this song in the album was to provide some shelter for the ones who are getting through difficult times.”
ABSTRACTED MIND has moved from Spanish-language material toward predominantly English songwriting. Beyond reaching an international audience, has writing in English changed the way you construct melodies, vocal lines or emotional meaning?
We would say that it definitely changes the way we write melodies and vocal lines, as Spanish is a language with much longer words than English, and rhyming is also much easier in English. In terms of emotional meaning, not that much. We try to be true to ourselves and the messages we want to communicate, no matter the language.
Symphonic and cinematic elements have become increasingly common across modern metal. What do you think ABSTRACTED MIND needs to do musically to make those elements feel like part of the band's own language rather than simply the conventions of a crowded genre?
We always write the orchestral parts with the same importance as the band parts. For us, the orchestra is not a decoration or a production layer but an intrinsic part of the songs. In fact, some of the songs started from orchestral ideas. So in that sense, we feel that the symphonic and cinematic elements are a crucial part of our own language as a band. And no matter how crowded the genre is, there’s always room for a different point of view.
“For us, the orchestra is not a decoration or a production layer but an intrinsic part of the songs.”
You and Yamil have been responsible for a substantial part of the writing, performance and production process yourselves. When the people creating a song are also responsible for shaping its final sound, how do you recognise when an idea should be protected and when it needs outside criticism or a different perspective?
There were some moments during the writing process when we couldn’t find the right idea to continue a song, so we gave it the necessary rest and didn’t push it just because it needed to be finished. We always try to serve the song and find the best idea that convinces both of us, even if that means getting rid of an idea that has already grown inside one of us. There are also a lot of unfinished ideas and songs that we discarded simply because they were not good enough according to our standards.
The current music industry increasingly rewards frequent singles, short-form content and constant online visibility. As an independent band, how do you balance those demands with creating music that is intended to be experienced as a complete and carefully developed work?
Well, we try to make every song a complete experience, as we did with the singles.
Of course, we are from a generation that listens to whole albums, but we wanted the audience to be able to listen to the songs as different pieces of the whole that is “Break Down Your Fears” and connect with whatever resonates with them the most.
Artificial intelligence is now being used in songwriting, artwork, video production and promotion. Where do you personally draw the line between using technology as a creative tool and allowing it to replace the human decisions that give a piece of music its identity?
We don’t use AI as a creative tool or to replace any human decision. It can be a faster tool than a dictionary or Google, but we use it in the same way as those previous tools. It makes some processes faster, like correcting expressions in a language that is not our first language, but never to replace an idea or generate something that does not come from inside our own minds.
Moving from Argentina to the Netherlands placed ABSTRACTED MIND inside two very different musical environments. Has living and working in Europe changed not only your ambitions for the band, but also your understanding of the musical culture you originally came from?
Totally. In Latin America, the ambitions can be really low compared to Europe. There are more opportunities here, and the audience is also more open to different genres. Something like summer festivals is not really a thing in Latin America, so it changes how far you can aim as a band.
Your debut album has now established a fairly clear musical identity for ABSTRACTED MIND. Looking back at the finished record, is there a creative decision you would approach differently today — not because you consider it a mistake, but because the band has already evolved beyond the mindset in which it was made?
There were moments during the production process when some things were approached differently from how the song was originally written, and it led to a lot of overthinking. But now, after all of that, we stand by our decisions. We can use creativity and evolution to move forward with the upcoming material.
Now that “Break Down Your Fears” is no longer an upcoming project but a released record, what is the biggest artistic challenge you want ABSTRACTED MIND to tackle next: expanding the live experience, pushing the songwriting further, changing the balance between metal and orchestral elements, or moving somewhere completely unexpected?
To be honest, all of the above! We are expanding our live experience, and we are already working on new material that we would not call completely unexpected, but that, from our point of view, is more elaborate than this first album.
If we speak to you again several years from now, what would you like to have changed about ABSTRACTED MIND — musically, creatively or professionally — for this debut album to be remembered as the beginning of something rather than simply the first chapter?
We’d like Abstracted Mind to keep evolving without losing the identity we built with “Break Down Your Fears”. We want to keep pushing ourselves as songwriters, explore new ways of expressing our ideas and become a stronger live band. Of course, we’d love to reach bigger audiences and stages along the way, but more than anything, we want to look back at this album years from now and see it as the foundation of something that kept growing, changing and challenging us.
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