William Fitzsimmons is equal parts songwriter and psychotherapist, creating captivating music which uniquely melds depravity, honesty, and autobiography into a counter-intuitively seamless whole. While previous releases have been a detailed and agonizing retelling of events, Gold in the Shadow is about Fitzsimmons' personal regeneration in the aftermath of those experiences. He describes the songs as a real and long coming confrontation with personal demons, past mistakes, and the specter of mental illness which has hovered over me for the great majority of my life.