Read the full review from Virgin Music HERE

William Fitzsimmons has described this latest album and his last record, 'Goodbye', as being 'different chapters of a similar book'. Were this the case, the book in question would make for particularly unsettling reading. The anguish that Fitzsimmons had carried around with him since a child following the separation of his parents - both blind, both musicians - was ploughed into the making of 'Goodbye'.

However, far from being a much-needed cathartic experience, the process of making the album is said to have proved so traumatic that it eventually led to the disintegration of Fitzsimmons's own marriage. This in turn provided inspiration for the follow-up to 'Goodbye', new album 'The Sparrow and the Crow'.

The sad saga behind Fitzsimmons's music raises an age old question: as purveyors of great music, would we prefer to know that our favourite artists are enjoying a stable, happy existence, at the risk of us then having to settle for fairly mediocre musical output, or would we rather they be insecure, drug-addled, emotionally scarred write-offs, safe in the knowledge that such a state invariably leads to some truly great music?

As amoral a choice as it may seem at times, it's rarely a difficult one. Scouting For Girls or Nirvana? James Blunt or Peter Doherty? Miley Cyrus or Amy Winehouse?

The stripped-down beauty of the songs on 'The Sparrow and the Crow' makes it very difficult to wish that Fitzsimmons had never suffered in the way that he has. There are clear parallels to be drawn between this album and Bon Iver's 'For Emma, Forever Ago', both musically and emotionally; it's extremely understated and contained, and there is virtually no deployment of rhythm instrumentation throughout.

Despite being so sparse, the songs start to work their way into your system from the very first listen which, coupled with Fitzsimmons's starkly sincere lyrics, makes 'The Sparrow and the Crow' all the more powerful. A truly special record from a truly special songwriter.

8/10