Album Review | 'Super Clean Vol. 1' 

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Grace Serene and the Super Clean's “Super Clean Vol. 1” welcomes and invites as it confidently stitches the raw, skilled approaches of musicians Grace Serene (vocals), Arjun Baxter (bass guitar), Joe Stehle (keyboards), Brendan Caroselli (percussion), and Zack Mikida (guitar). A product of real-time, sublime collaboration, the simplicity balances embellishment in all eight track offerings. (Yeah… I think we can dance in here.)

“Rear View Mirror,” an overture and good-time-gospel-funk groover, channels the crowd to the pit, effortlessly romping through the shifting musical valley and not upsetting a single chordal flower. Slick strutter “Dirty Laundry” opens up space for “Warfare,” where Grace’s vocal dexterity is on full display, as is the warfare that can rage within one’s mind: The world’s on fire, I don’t know who to blame, they say hide away, but I just lie awake. Uncertainties empathized by tango-twinge and prowess climb up high on the electric guitar neck.

As “Time Of My Life” rips open into a soulful, syncopated two-step, the search continues from zero to 60, wilting ecstasy into unknown flats. Clear also is the live element as related to the entire universe of the song. A reward and an invite; with riffs, grooves, and hooks only discoverable via time spent as a band, are hard boiled onto the album’s DNA.

Beckoning through dusk, “Adrenaline Rush” reverberates in cool spaces perfumed with long vocal phrases and lust: She was like an adrenaline rush, she’s your morning sun and gone at dusk. The Super Clean’s cohesion is apparent as it exits tastefully with some low-end thump and continues into “Without Me.”

Brass is introduced for the final two tracks: the operatic “Don’t Blame Me for Trying” is a humble head-nodder at onset until it blooms and refrains beneath solo percussion, begging for memorization of the throbbing anthem. Answering the heart-hole left after album’s end, “See You Soon” reassures that Rochester will always be a home.

Ryan Yarmel is a contributing writer to CITY and music director of The Route. He can be reached at [email protected].