William Fitzsimmons - Goodnight (Naim) The youngest child of blind parents, who subsequently divorced, William Fitzsimmons second album chronicles the breakdown of their relationship and attempts to come to terms with the emotional aftermath. While I admire Fitzsimmons nerve taking on this obviously upsetting and harrowing series of events, was there any real need to drag the rest of us into it? I mean, the economy’s collapsed, unemployment’s on the up and we’re all about to catch swine flu - we’ve all got problems. As the oldest child of seeing parents, who didn’t get divorced, all I can do is pretend to know what he went through and move along. This album of relentless misery and confusion is obviously a release of sorts, but unless you’re genuinely sharing those feelings of sorrow and loss, it’s impossible to properly relate. Things aren’t helped by the truly annoying percussion in the opening song, “It’s Not True”, which then makes an unwelcome return on the maudlin “Please Don’t Go”. In-between (and after) Fitzsimmons acoustically and slowly exorcises his demons, a process which has moments of sparse beauty, but is rarely uplifting. The news that his own marriage ended during the album’s gestation and recording, while sad, is hardly surprising. www.thenaimlabel.co.uk Rob F. Next