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You Are Here (CD)
You Are Here communicates such an air of childproofed benignity that it almost feels wrong. Perhaps that's because Black's production style is completely de-clawed, sanding down every little piece of grit into a soft, compressed sound - none of the heavy reverb one might have expected from a project so heavily indebted to the 80s is present here. It particularly deadens the palm-muted verse bits of "One Thousand Nights" and the self-titled closing track, both of which arguably feature rather cookie-cutter song-writing that could have used some assistance from a sound that wasn't so sterilized.
Earnestly light-hearted and easily palatable as You Are Here is, 2014 still belongs to the misanthropes and the nihilists (but thankfully not the national socialists). That being said, I think Black's throwback to a simpler time in metal history will appeal to many who can look past the record's flaws and indulge in good, old fashioned hard rock optimism.
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