★★★★★
It's difficult to listen to William Fitzsimmons and not conjure up visions of Nick Drake. There's that hushed, vulnerable, velvety voice of course, but the stripped down musical backing and painfully introspective songs, many referencing loneliness, loss and longing also invoke Drake's similar MO. None of this is a revelation to existing fans of Fitzsimmons' five album catalog, much of which plows similar soil...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2014-02-25
★★★★★
Over the course of the last nine years, William Fitzsimmons has been creating beautifully crafted lo-fi, acoustic folk songs; if one were to listen to his debut alongside his latest releases it would be clear to listeners that Fitzsimmons does not feel the need to constantly change his sound. And rightfully so...
- www.sputnikmusic.com
2014-02-20
★★★★★
Singer-songwriter William Fitzsimmons comes with excellent credentials. His previous records, five in all, were exceedingly well received. Which is to say they were cited in all the right places and more than one of his songs found their way onto network television. On the heels of (2010), a page turning acoustic effort, Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris Walla (whose production credits include the Decemberists and Tegan and Sara) signed on to produce , his sixth and latest full-length record...
- exclaim.ca
2014-03-21
★★★★★
William Fitzsimmons has made a career out of writing songs characterized by gradual grace and understated beauty. Arriving on the scene in 2005, in the wake of Iron & Wine's Our Endless Numbered Days, Fitzsimmons capitalized on a lot of the qualities that have made Sam Beam one of the most revered and mysterious singer/songwriters of the 21st century...
- absolutepunk.net
2014-02-18
★★★★★
Whistling away on the same thread as the likes of Kevin Devine and Iron & Wine is young Mr William Fitzsimmons of Pittsburgh, the youngest son of blind parents, the divorce of whom is the subject of Fitzsimmons' sophomore release, 'Goodnight'. "It was definitely one of the most depressed and dark periods I've ever been through," he says of creating the album. Well then. We can see why you called it 'Goodnight'...
- www.thecmuwebsite.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Who knew that such melancholic tunes could excite me so? His name is William Fitzsimmons, and his game is to write the most gut-wrenchingly honest, heart-on-sleeve poetic folk songs streaming today. His work has been renowned all over the world, including Australia and the UK, and in the states, his prior masterpiece Sparrow and the Crow, released in 2008, reached #1 on iTunes Folk Albums Chart. Subsequently, it was named the top Folk Album by the same musical giant...
- www.reviewrinserepeat.com
2011-04-11
★★★★★
There's always a worry that something will be lost when a previously brilliantly bleak singer songwriter starts to cheer up. Yet it's heartening to hear Pennsylvanian songwriter William Fitzsimmons shifting to a more optimistic worldview than the one which consumed his divorce-themed 2008 release The Sparrow And The Crow...
- www.musicomh.com
2011-04-11
★★★★★
Heavy on the heart is this young William Fitzsimmons. Armed with his thick-rimmed glasses, acoustic six-string and scraggly beard, he sets hearts a-flutter with his heavy words and quiet sounds. On album number five, Fitzsimmons displays the soft-pop meets folk-rock properties that have earned him a loyal legion of followers - introspective songs seeped in a sadness that parlays the grit and grime of this world into easy-on-the-ears tales of today...
- www.hour.ca
2011-03-28
★★★★★
Summary: And just when things are looking up, Fitzsimmons drops a dud. Many of us fully expected to group William Fitzsimmons' latest with the best that 2011 has yet to offer in the singer-songwriter field, namely with Kurt Vile's Smoke Ring For My Halo and of course PJ Harvey's Let England Shake, yet Gold In The Shadow is not the collection of melodramatic and emotive tunes we had hoped it would be...
- www.sputnikmusic.com
2011-03-21
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