The latest addition to the burgeoning Flat Earth roster, Georgia's Gentle Readers mark their debut on the Indianapolis-based label with a record highlighted by heartsore lyrics and generic mid-tempo heartland rock. Lee Cuthbert (and, when she handles co-writer duties, Susan Fitzsimmons) is a talented lyricist, to be sure, but the songs here just don't do her words justice. It's a shame, really - the cast assembled to help complete the record is a quite capable one, including Vess Ruhtenberg of United States Three, Kim Fox, Better Than Ezra's Travis McNabb, and Paul Mahern, who also produced the disc.

Only toward the end of the record do the Readers touch upon what You in Black & White could have been; sadly, songs like "Town & Country," "When We Were Small" and "Real Smoke" seem more like an afterthought. Best of the bunch are "Town & Country" and "City of Vacant Women"; overall, though, most of the tunes are too similar to differentiate, and Fitzsimmon's vocals are lost in the run-of-the-mill quality pervading most of the songs. Still, You in Black & White is, all in all, a harmless, inoffensive record good for putting on when you need to concentrate on other things.