This week marks the release of Pérdidas Variables, the new album by Mexico City post-hardcore icons Joliette. Out Friday, June 20th, on Persistent Vision Records, the album comes with a full track-by-track breakdown from guitarist and vocalist Gastón Prado—shared in advance exclusively via IDIOTEQ.
We’re proud to present this rare deep dive into one of the most consistent and quietly influential heavy bands coming out of Latin America. Check out the full rundown below.
Founded in 2011, Joliette has long operated in the blurry space between emotional hardcore, chaotic screamo, and post-metal—moving with the surgical heaviness of bands like Cult of Luna, while channeling the raw urgency of groups like Raein or Saetia.
On Pérdidas Variables, the quartet once again pulls tension from opposites: chaos and order, collapse and control, private loss and collective trauma.
The album is rooted in Mexico City, both physically and psychologically. “It’s a meditation on Mexico City,” says guitarist Juan Pablo Castillo, “as both a physical space and a psychological one, a place constantly shifting under your feet, full of layers, ruins, and noise. The lyrics are rooted in very real fears—earthquakes, collapse, systems failing—but they’re also about the quiet, daily sense of disconnection and mourning that urban life can bring.”
View this post on Instagram
The eight tracks on Pérdidas Variables reflect this unease with jagged precision. On the opening track, Todos pierden, time feels slippery, life repetitive and fragile. It’s short and direct, “like a sudden realization,” Prado explains. “A quiet kind of loss, the kind you don’t notice until it’s already gone.”
View this post on Instagram
Arsénico uses tectonic metaphors to describe emotional pressure. “It’s also a reference to the city being built over a lake, and how that instability—both literal and emotional—seeps into everything,” the band notes. Decay, memory, and the inevitability of return shape the core of the song.
View this post on Instagram
Track By Track Breakdown of “Pérdidas Variabes”, by Gastón Prado of Joliette
1. Todos pierden
Time slips through your hands without warning. It’s a short and direct song, like a sudden realization. It reflects how daily life can feel repetitive and fragile, especially in a city like Mexico City, where everything moves fast and moments disappear before you’ve had time to hold onto them. It’s a quiet kind of loss, the kind you don’t notice until it’s already gone.
2. Arsénico
Arsénico speaks about inner collapse using the imagery of geological tension. We thought of tectonic plates crashing into each other, like the emotional pressure that builds beneath the surface until something breaks. It’s also a reference to the city being built over a lake, and how that instability—both literal and emotional—seeps into everything. The song looks at memory, decay, and the inevitability of being pulled back into what you thought you’d left behind.
3. Limítrofe
This song explores what it feels like to live in the margins. It’s about being suspended between two places, or two versions of yourself, not knowing where you belong. The lyrics reflect the silence that creeps in from the cracks, and how that silence can weigh more than noise. It touches on environmental decay, violence, and the emotional toll of living in a place that feels both familiar and alien. It’s one of our more desolate tracks.
4. Cielo sordo
The fourth track is directly inspired by the Mexico City subway system. We tried to capture the weight and the rhythm of the underground—how it feels to descend into that mechanical hive. The ghost-like movements of the crowd, the echo of metal against stone, the sense of being just one more shadow in the current. It’s a song about routine, repetition, and how the city buries you while keeping you moving.
5. L’uomo mangia la mela
This song talks about the loops we fall into, even when we know better. It’s about making the same mistakes and watching yourself do it from the outside. The title is a reference to that first moment of temptation, but it’s not really about religion—it’s more about human nature, denial, and the lies we tell ourselves to make it through. It’s one of the more chaotic tracks in terms of emotion.
6. Pérdida variable
The title track is about forgetting as a survival mechanism. It reflects on how some things are meant to fade, and how we learn to live with loss by turning it into something manageable. It also plays with the idea of memory as a variable—something that changes shape over time. For us, it’s a song about acceptance, but also about the slow erosion of what used to matter.
7. Nimbus
Nimbus is a portrait of the city during a heavy rain. The way the buildings breathe, the way light reflects off wet asphalt, the smell of concrete and smoke. We were thinking of how the city transforms when it rains, how it reveals hidden layers—decay, beauty, forgotten corners. It’s a surreal track, built around texture and atmosphere, where history leaks from the walls and everything feels suspended in water and light.
8. Gris protagónico
This was the last song we wrote, and it feels like the emotional core of the album. It’s about becoming part of the background in a place that moves too fast to notice you. It reflects on Mexico City as a place of ghosts and routines, where people fade into the smog and no one really wins. The “gray protagonist” is someone who keeps going, despite everything. It’s bleak, but there’s something human in that persistence too.
