Stylized in a spitfire melodicism that you don’t often find on the FM dial anymore, the vocal Jake Clayton injects into his new single “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” is undisputedly the most sterling element to behold in the mix. That’s no small statement to make when taking into account how evocative the guitar parts are in this cover of Cage The Elephant’s alternative rock hit, not to mention the physicality of the bass and drums in the track as well. Clayton manages to put his own touch on a stone cold classic here, and for his efforts I believe he deserves quite a bit of praise.
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The bassline is understated but serves a pivotal role in cushioning the guitars and developing a buffer between the instrumentation and the vocal in general. It would have been a little cheap to oversize any of the bass parts here, and not because of any modern trends in pop music alone; in all honesty, I actually think it could have made this take on “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” sound a bit too grandiose for what Clayton was probably trying to achieve. He knows what kind of music he wants to make at this point in his career – searching for a sound has never been his forte.
There’s so much warmth to the riffing in “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked,” and I would even argue that the guitars in this single are a little heavier in tone than they were in the original version of the song. You don’t have to be a music expert to appreciate the tube amplification Clayton is clearly running his axe through for the guitar parts – it adds an intensity to the track that simply would not have been present in a different scenario.
While I do think that the drums were equalized with a hint of abrasiveness, I haven’t the slightest doubt as to whether or not this was intentional on the part of Jake Clayton; I know it was. By allowing for a lot of raw texture to come through our speakers alongside genuinely melodic faceting, he makes it awfully hard to walk away from this single without feeling affected by its sonic presence. That’s essentially how every artist should cover a song, but fortunately for this player, he’s one of the few taking such an approach this season.
APPLE MUSIC: music.apple.com/us/album/aint-no-rest-for-the-wicked-single/1514620940
If you like southern rock-style grooves without any of the extra fluff, I believe that Jake Clayton’s “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” should be considered a must-have. Cage The Elephant are one of the more frequently covered acts of their generation, but there’s nothing derivative about the way Clayton delivers it unto us here. He’s got a style that is all his own, and in this track, he proves to the world – critics and fans alike – that there isn’t a stitch of material he can’t put an imprint on. I like the consistency he’s developed as an artist and definitely plan on following-up with him in the future.
Clay Burton