22. February 2025
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Media Review

William Fitzsimmons – Ready The Astronaut

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

William Fitzsimmons - Ready The Astronaut

William Fitzsimmons - Ready The Astronaut
4

Rating

 4.0/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Very nice atmosphere and storytelling
  • Clear concept, taking you on a eleven song trip

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Very demanding listen

William Fitzsimmons is a folk singer-songwriter, who is an active musician since 2005. On 25th June 2021, he released his new album, Ready The Astronaut. Here is my view on it.

 

William Fitzsimmons – About The Artist

William Fitzsimmons was born in 1978 in Pittsburgh. Both of his parents are blind and have musical background. He also developed several instrumental skills in his younger years. Fitzsimmons has a Master’s Degree in counseling. He debuted in releasing music in 2005, when he published his first album Unitl When We Are Ghosts. Since today, he had fifteen major releases, EPs and albums. His acoustic version of Fortune has 60 million streams on Spotify only.

 

William Fitzsimmons – Ready The Astronaut – Track by Track

The eleven track album lasts forty minutes.

1. Dancing On The Sun

You caught me dancing on the sun
A million stars were in your eyes
And I fell for you so hard
Think I’ll love you till you die

The whole album is about love (and also about breaking up), paired with the astronaut / space topic. The opener Dancing on the Sun, which is coming with these characteristic slowdowns in the song, is already setting the scene for the album. In fact, William Fitzsimmons opens his 2021 album with one of the best songs on it.

2. No Promises

While Fitzsimmons has almost been whispering the vocals of the first track, No Promises creates a space-alike atmosphere with electronic background sounds. The quiet voice of the artist gives an additional touch of wide open space. Finally, this is how Fitzsimmons takes the listener on his musical journey. It works quite well – at least in the first two tracks. Not too surprisingly that both have been selected as single releases.

3. Down With Another One

And words won’t work
They only bring you down
You never hear the sound
They only make it worse
I did my best for you
You never let me through
Down with another one

The third song is blending between synth pop and rock. In the quiet atmosphere of the album so far, the guitar riffs in the background almost feel angry and threatening to me. Nice style and a very different way to tell the story of the song compared to the first two ones.

4. Daedalus, My Father

Icarus and his father Daedalus are one of the main metaphors of Ready The Astronaut. The song is again quite concentrated melodically and just makes use of the instrumentation it absolutely needs. Very nice listen.

5. As Long As I Can Breathe

You turned the water into wine when I was younger
You were to me a broken hearted beat
You tended me a mother to a sickly child
I’ll love you for as long as I can breathe

A song, which is obviously about feelings and memories of a finished relationship. The song is rather short. The clapping as part of the rhythm and the extremely limited arrangement in general give a spooky touch to the song. Sometimes, the drums feel like heart beats.

6. Ready The Astronaut

The title track of the album is right in the middle of the recording. The song is the second longest one on the album. The song has a scary, almost psychedelic touch to me.

Cursed with a living ghost
Still I’m afraid to fall
Ready the astronaut
I’m never coming home

7. You Let Me Down

The arrangement of You Let Me Down strongly reminds me of As Long As I Can Breathe. The song is in this mental climax of strife – which somehow also leads to the fact that the song is musically very well done, but still burdening to listen to.

8. Maybe She Will Change Her Mind

Did you really want to marry me
Did I hear you right
Were you drunk that night
Now you turn around and walk away
Said it came too fast
Wasn’t meant to last, but
Maybe you will change your mind

While listening to this eighth track of the album, I am more and more shaken about Ready The Astronaut. On the one hand, I highly appreciate the amazing songwriting and musical quality of the tracks – on the other hand, it is just mentally a tough task to follow William Fitzsimmons on his track through love and space. Female background voices in this track give raise that psychopathic touch of the story.

9. If I Fell Back To The Earth (You Will Never Find Me)

The ninth song is about falling back to Earth and comes with the clear statement. I will fall in love again but you will never find me. After a couple of tough episodes, the album turns into a much easier listen again. There are also less electronic elements used for this track.

10. Icarus

The tenth track is like a sibling track to Daedalus, My Father. The song is very melodic and references the classic Greek myth very nicely. In fact, the album is of course about a break-up, but I feel the way Fitzsimmons is telling this song is just beautiful.

Like Icarus foolishly going to high
Or thinking that someday you might be my wife
Watching the wax dripping down towards the sea
Or wondering if you ever still think of me

11. To Love Forever

The album closes with gentle, almost kitschy vocals – and even more kitschy background instrumentation like violins. Sorry for revealing this, but this eleven song story finally closes with

I hope you can forgive me
I hope you can let all of this go
You will find what you need in forgiveness,

which is somehow a good message after all these tough feelings and songs.

 

William Fitzsimmons – Ready The Astronaut – Spotify

Here is Ready The Astronaut on Spotify:

 

William Fitzsimmons – Ready The Astronaut – My View

Ready The Astronaut is one of these albums, which give me a real struggle at the end of the review. Yes, William Fitzsimmons does amazing songs. He is creating lovely metaphors. You feel his feelings (even if you would rather prefer not to do so…). Vice versa, that means: he takes you on a tough travel. Many of you will not join it or leave after one or stages. It is very well-done, but tough to listen to music. You will likely either end up loving the album – or just don’t getting into it at all.

 

 

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