Tim’s Favourite – amaConda

Belgian quartet Tim’s Favourite have been active for more than 25 years, where they released their debut back in 2003 entitled, Noises from the Dark Room. Six years later their sophomore full-length Geometry for the Selfish Herd (2009) got released. After a bit longer temporary pause, this group of dedicated musicians released We, The Willing (2018). Now, we come to their latest release that I’ve been listening for quite some time now. Their fourth full-length, called amaConda, (not misspelled!), contains eleven tracks of what I would call; a nice blend of grunge, progressive and traditional heavy metal. The album has been released independently by the band, and distributed by Hard Life Promotion, almost a year ago.

In the time of recording of amaConda band’s line-up looked like this; Jan Pauwels (vocals and guitar), Elie De Backer (drums), Wolf D’haese (bass & backing vocals) and Tim Pauwells (guitar & backing vocals). First and foremost, Tim’s Favourite is a fantastic moniker for a band! Apart from this unique yet memorable name for a band, their lyrics are equally exceptional and catchy. At first one would think that the lyrical content is ridiculous and funny, but in a fact they’re ‘dead serious’, dealing with topics such as religion, science, free will, capitalism, pandemics, propaganda, Darwinism and even historical events like Holocaust.

amaConda opens with “Connect and Divide”, mostly recognizable for this gnarly groove and snarling vocals of their frontman. This song deals with one of the most connecting, but probably even more so, polarizing forces in the world these days: social media. Second track is called “Totalibertarian”, with its successor, “Not In Our Name”, is obviously one of the tracks dealing with political issues. Where “Totalibertarian”, (written during The COVID-19 pandemic, and is about one of the craziest conspiracy theories/propaganda from a Belgian professor), is maybe a song with more grunge orientation, “Not In Our Name” still keeps the attitude but steadily build/ramps up more progressive influences. Then once again bands grunge side takes over on mellower tracks like the following; “Filling The Hollow”, “Andy’s Fall”and the closing one, “Fly”, where I’ll ask you to pay an extra attention to this particular song named “Fly”. It’s the most favourite song of the album for me, and an absolutely very beautiful and emotional track with some moving, touching and dreamy melodies. But in-between these songs we find self-titled “amaConda”. This particular track is obviously based on the word ‘anaconda’. In brief, it plays on the comparing of a pretty disruptive multi-national media corporations, as referred to as ‘an all-choking anaconda’. The title of “Embarrassment Now (The Road to Heaven)” is a sarcastic reference to a book by Steven Pinker, “Enlightenment Now”. It deals with science, facts and their impact on democracy. I like the riffing and blistering rhythm section on this one. On “A Deeper Advantage” and “Into That Darkness” they’re alternating between more gentle and more aggressive displays of their sound, while still including and exploring different landscapes that most of grunge and stoner bands often include in their music. “Phantom In My Head” serves as a nice bridge connecting the exploring and progressive side of their music with an emotional and beautiful ending that the closing “Fly” provides.

There are way too little adjectives to describe sound, so it makes it even harder to tell their musical references, but I hope I’m not offending guys from the band if I mention the likes of Tool, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Dream Theater, Metallica etc. Despite of obvious musical influences, they create original music where each song is done exceptionally well, genuine, relevant, and with their own touch and musical identity. In other words; I haven’t heard many that integrate these various influences as well as Tim’s Favourite does.

In a nutshell; amaConda is without a doubt one of the best albums of this kind I’ve had the pleasure to listen this year. It contains a stellar songwriting, professional, delightful and modern production, beautiful cover art, interesting lyrics and much more. I therefore sincerely hope that all fans of the bands mentioned above, or/and worshippers of a decent grunge, progressive-, stoner rock, psychedelia and even some thrash metal, will give it a listen, because this Belgian quartet is worth your attention and support. You don’t wanna miss out on this!

Visit band’s official page for further info on this and all previous releases from Tim’s Favourite at
https://timsfavourite.com/