A few years down the road as a “professional” (HA!), I became unemployed. I’ve been working for a parastatal that worked environmental research and impact for the government. It wasn’t a flashy job, but it was a great opportunity to work with clever people doing their best for the environment, whenever red tape and the budget allowed them to.

It was brutal at times, as you sometimes had to travel through jungle, pastureland, and meadows in hot and humid states like Tabasco, Veracruz, and Chiapas. Even worse, a lot of these places had little to no maintenance, so getting lost was a possibility, and lancehead snakes made their abode in such places. And even even even worse, Organised Crime used to prey on people like us, as some of the equipment was really expensive and could be use for ulterior motives.

Still, nothing too bad. I had some incidents getting stuck in swamps, getting interrogated by people wielding machetes, and having to hide from some nefarious dudes on a pick up truck with polarised glass. Oh, and there was this time a coral snake was curious near my backpack and we both darted on opposite directions after realising our proximity.

It was a good job, but physically and mentally exhausting. It got a little easier later, with sampling now on the north of Mexico and sometimes on coastal towns. As contracts were monthly, you always started anew every new month, never get an increase on your salary nor benefits.

So, unemployed, a nice wad of dosh and in the middle of relationships going topsy turvy. It wasn’t the best of times, emotionally speaking, but I managed to get by. It got me the opportunity to catch up with a lot of bands as MTV had degenerated into reality shows, and most file-sharing programs were getting 86ed right and left. Blogs were a good alternative and you could find an album you always wanted on blogspot or torrent. Such was the case with The Cooper Temple Clause, whom I found thanks to a long gone blogspot url that had a free mp3 every monday for lesser known acts. The song was Promises, Promises and its succinct, aggressive nature enticed me.

Eventually saw the album at a discount price and got it. The beauty of Kick up the fire and let the flames break loose, their sophomore album, is how different the songs. Genrebending experimentations, akin to mashing Radiohead with Spacehog, eerie atmospheres, and melancholic lyrics through and through. I had no job, I was catching up with music, and honing my writing skills, which I had set aside for a while as I was editing too many drafts for many novels that I don’t plan on finishing up.

The Same Mistakes is the album opener of Kick up the fire and let the flames break loose and it grabs you by the soul. Verbose, full of droning atmospheres, it explodes and cuts through you like a thousand paper cuts. Too many times I sat at night, looking at the sky, barely catching some sleep, just replaying the song, thinking that I could’ve stayed in Nottingham if I’d made more of an effort.

-Sam J. Valdés López