Canadian-born musician and singer-songwriter Frederic Casimir took a step towards his dream of being part of the music industry and enrolled in Berklee College of music where he earned two music degrees. With an additional two degrees to go along with them, Casimir decided he needed a stage name. Today, Frederic Casimir is known as Freddie Atlas. Freddie Atlas divides his time between creating music that follows along with the education he received at Berklee and more pop-influenced music. Recently after releasing songs like “Vain” and “Visions” that are more orchestral in nature, Freddie Atlas went in a more pop-influenced direction and created the single called “Wicked Game”. “Wicked Game” is a song originally written and released by Chris Isaak. And while the original version released by Isaak is a fully fleshed-out pop-rock track that was created using the guitar as the main instrument, the newly recorded version of the song by Freddie Atlas breaks the song down into a very subtle, yet lush arrangement of just the piano and his vocals. Taking the track and arranging it to include the piano instead of the guitar was a great decision as it takes the song in a completely different direction than the original version. The new version of the song features vocals from Freddie Atlas. Atlas is one singer who can actually handle the vocals of this song as his voice and Chris Isaak’s vocals are very similar to each other. That similarity helps Atlas to create a version of “Wicked Game” that seems to have the same musical beauty as Chris Issak’s version. And while the two versions of the song are very similar in nature, Freddie Atlas’ vocal and the beautiful piano combine to create an arrangement that does more to bring out the beauty in the lyrics from Isaak than Isaak’s own version of the track. I can truly say that I really like this version of “Wicked Game” from Freddie Atlas as it keeps much of the original concept of the song from Chris Isaak while Freddie Atlas takes the song in a much different direction because of the use of a different instrument as the basis for the music of the song. A great arrangement and great vocal add up to a cover version that is as good as or better than the original.
Reviewer: Matheson Kamin
Rating: ***** (five stars)
(Click HERE to see the video to “Wicked Game” from Freddie Atlas.)
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