Tim Knol approaches the level of his heroes Wilco and Tom Petty on his new album

In the title track of his new album Lightyears Better Tim Knol (32) sings the lines ‘I was traveling at the speed of sound/but now I’m lightyears better’. It’s one of those lines that you immediately sing out loud, in a song that grabs you from the very first notes. The warm acoustic sound continues to glow on the rest of the album after this opening track. Has Tim Knol really gotten that much better, like the book published by Thomas Rap at the same time as the album Light years better suggests? No of course not. From his first album with the hit single sam (2010) it was already clear that Dutch pop music was an extraordinary talent richer with the then only 20-year-old Knol.

The records that he has since released with his own band or the Bluegrass Boogiemen showed that Knol developed further musically and lyrically. But playing a lot also took its toll. He had to change course, Knol started living a healthier life, walked a lot, lost 40 kilos and in the meantime wrote the most beautiful songs of his career.

The whole story and much more can be found in the book, illuminated with beautiful photos, in which interviewer Nico Dijkshoorn always asks the right questions. After reading all songs get even more depth, but they can also stand on their own. Beautiful, for example, is that abrasive electric guitar in The Lone Mile, disruptive and biting in a way that Nels Cline can so cleverly in the songs of the band Wilco. The atmosphere on Lightyears Better reminds me a lot of their album Sky Blue Sky and Tom Petty’s wildflowers. All of Knol’s heroes, as appears from his book, but he did not approach their level as close as on his beautiful new album.