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- Community Breakfast, The Landscape Is the Only Thing That Never Changes
(Self-released, digital)
Rock and roll music has been subdivided and gentrified into 10,000 subgenres, but the beating heart of it all has ever been a raw, joyful blast of noise. For that very reason, rock depends on constant infusions of young blood to sustain itself. If this reads like I'm saying Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney are vampires, well, there is a case to be made. Founded on the original sin of pillaging and whitewashing rhythm and blues, the soundtrack of our consumer culture has been recycling the same poses, ideas and half dozen chord changes ever since.
To be fair, though, that's because it never stopped working. As important as all that history is, none of it matters more than the adrenaline rush of cranking up a guitar amp in a room full of your friends. That kind of pure energy is what animates Community Breakfast, a promising new band that blasts onto the Burlington scene with a debut EP, The Landscape Is the Only Thing That Never Changes. They are fresh out of high school, earnest and jaded in equal measures, and loud as hell.
Opening track "Accidents" is a hit single waiting to happen. Lead singer Adalee "Adi" Leddy's voice has a charming lilt that effortlessly cuts through the crushing wall of guitar. At the risk of aging myself, I'll note that such breezy melodics used to be called "college rock" back when radio ruled the world.
The songwriting is quite mature, most likely thanks to the team effort involved. Every member of the band contributed lyrics to at least one of these songs, and they hammered out all the arrangements together.
The only half-baked meal on the project is "Beck's Song," which never grows too far from the opening riff. Aside from that, these are all carefully polished, often adventurous songs — especially "New Old Faces," which starts as a ballad and then dives into some of the wildest noise on the album.
On Spotify, the album closes with an acoustic reprise of "Accidents." Rather than feeling like an indulgence, this quieter take only emphasizes what a strong composition it is. If you get the album on Bandcamp, however, you'll find a hidden bonus track — and it's superb. "The Bell (Demo)" spotlights Leddy's fiddle work and veers distinctly alt-country, a tantalizing look at where Community Breakfast could evolve from here.
No question, Landscape is the work of a talented young band. Lead guitarist Dylan Mac is currently studying at Berklee College of Music, and drummer Waylon Hammaker's father, Chad Hammaker, played guitar for legendary 802 country-rockers Chuch and Waylon Speed. There is a lot of history and a lot of promise here, but what really makes the project work is the sheer, uninhibited joy that comes across in every song. Self-recorded and self-produced, The Landscape Is the Only Thing That Never Changes is rough around the edges and just about perfect rock and roll.
The Landscape Is the Only Thing That Never Changes is available on all major streaming platforms.