With a name like William Fitzsimmons, it’s gotta be folk. Luckily, Fitzsimmons’ songs are more polished and thoughtful than most folk music. Fitzsimmons is more than your standard guy-with-a-guitar lackadaisically hammering out rhyming feel-goodery. With his newest release, The Sparrow and the Crow, Fitzsimmons improves upon a technically sound but depressing variation of folk that he has thus far in his career been underappreciated for.
Even though a photograph of Fitzsimmons makes him look like a State Street bum, the transparency of his lyrics — based mostly on his own life — and the oddly personable singer his albums somehow construct make for one of those interesting Pittsburgh musicians you would just love to sit down and chat with about their life story — or at least lament the pains of life with. The Sparrow and the Crow appears mostly to be about Fitzsimmons’ own divorce — made all the more depressing when considering his first album was mostly about his parents’ divorce during his younger years — but it’s presented as a familiar pain we can all relate to, even if it is the most common theme in music.
Of particular note is the track “If You Would Come Back Home,” which some students may recognize from an indie sampler the Apple Students Facebook page recently provided as a free download. With opening lyrics like, “There’s room between your heart/ And the chair where I’ve been sleeping,” the track pretty succinctly sums up a general album-long theme of love, loss, and missing someone important. But more than that, the song demonstrates a smooth, melodic voice and a simplistic melody that manages to become one of the most engaging and captivating of the entire album; one of those songs that lends itself to an excellent playlist or mixed album.
However, the simplistic melodies sometimes work against Fitzsimmons. The first track, “After Afterall” is about as redundant and depressing as it gets, with some generic, melancholy piano notes tapped, accompanied by repeating sets of lyrics like, “I still want you after all” and, “Will you keep me after all?” It’s a disappointingly discouraging way to introduce a new album, but at least it comes across as less juvenile than most artists could manage. But first-time listeners can take solace in knowing that the The Sparrow and the Crow improves considerably thereafter, though it doesn’t get much more uplifting.
Given its nearly exhaustively depressing mood and relatively consistent simplicity, The Sparrow and the Crow won’t be Fitzsimmons’ breakthrough album, but it doesn’t need to be. It remains a pure, enjoyable, heartfelt type of folk music that feels as personable as the mind behind it, and I seriously doubt that Fitzsimmons is searching for more than that. Nor should he need to.
4 stars out of 5.
