So if you like beards I can almost guarantee that you’ll like William Fitzsimmons as he seems to be a beard master. Seriously though, I realize it is a pretty blunt comparison, but if you like the hushed folk music Sufjan Steven’s Seven Swans I can almost guarantee that you’ll like the latest album from Jacksonville, Illinios’ William Fitzsimmons, The Sparrow And The Crow. The album heartbreakingly documents (in song) Fitzsimmons’ recent divorce and is (at times) almost uncomfortably intimate. Based around sparse drum beats, acoustic guitar, banjo, piano, occasional female backing vocals, and Fitzsimmons’ warm and subdued, breathy vocals, there is a beauty on The Sparrow And The Crow, but for all the beauty the music possesses the songs tackle some truly sad subject matter. Because of the emotional weight of these songs, it almost seems as if they would serve as the perfect musical backdrop for some dramatic and wordless montage on Gray’s Anatomy or E.R. You know, the one where things are going wrong at the hospital and in Merideth’s personal life. Take a minute as you listen to the songs to picture that. I think it would work perfectly.
Honestly though, I don’t want to make light of just how good and emotionally heavy The Sparrow And The Crow really is. Even though I prefer his voice paired with the warmth of an acoustic guitar rather than the colder piano as it is here, but (even so) it really is truly as if William Fitzsimmons poured his heart and soul out and captured it on tape. An excellent album also recommended for fans of Iron & Wine and/or Denison Witmer.
MP3 | William Fitzsimmons – I Don’t Feel It Anymore (Song Of The Sparrow) The Sparrow And The Crow
MP3 | William Fitzsimmons – You Still Hurt Me The Sparrow And The Crow
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