The album is entitled Goodnight and I instantly headed to iTunes and downloaded the thirteen poetic tracks. The Illinois native features a voice reminiscent of Bebo Norman's first album (Ten Thousand Days) and a simple innocence, yet the lyrics are much less about faith and simplicity and more about attempting to find faith and simplicity within complex relationships. Fitzsimmons is not shy about telling you the details of the stories residing in his mind, but his already honest lyrics come to life even more when you hear such simple strokes of imagery.

"Everything Has Changed" is a standout track featuring a simple strum and piano fill while lightly haunting harmonies echo Fitzsimmons' realization that, indeed, "everything has changed" after a divorce of his parents. It's both sorrowful and beautiful and I was moved to tears the first time I listened (unexpectedly while I was typing with headphones on, I just found myself... moved; that's the only word for it).

"Mend Your Heart" is another slow, lilting piano ballad that features four analogies of an unnamed "she" of which Fitzsimmons sings:

She is like a cigarette inside an ashtray
Nothing but a fire sets her free
Filling up my lungs until my body leaks her
Holdin' on so I can never breathe

She is like a gravestone sitting in the church yard
Crooked from the ground from which she sleeps
Whispering my name until I go to meet her
Underneath the ground she finds her peace

The album isn't all sadness, or at least musically. The downtrodden title "Please Don't Go" features an ambient electronica background that ends up taking over the track. It's a welcome change and carries the song well. Playful piano bounces along the minimal "Leave Me By Myself" before the familiar acoustic comes in atop the varying arrangement.

Still it's the staple breathy vocal and solo acoustic that Fitzsimmons should rely on and the album closer "After All" is a perfect way to close things. The almost eight-minute track features a simple repititive lyrical structure that somehow embraces and carries the listener through the thought progression of the writer - finding resolutions and questions within the mind. "Will you love me?" is coupled with "I still want you" and the words "after all" are repeated after each and every line. Finally the song builds slowly with Fizsimmons repeating wedding vows: "Till death do us part, after all" and "For better or worse, after all", for example. It's the joys, struggles and insecurities of the lifelong commitment together set to an simply exhilarating musical refrain.

There is hardly a competitor for Fitzsimmons' talent, even within a genre that seems as overcrowded as singer/songwriter. And Goodnight is as close to a can't-miss album as you will find.

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