Jonah Kagen - “God Needs The Devil”
Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez
Savannah, Georgia-based singer-songwriter Jonah Kagen returns to the blog with “God Needs The Devil,” a track that documents the search for balance between good and evil.
After a brief and intimate acoustic guitar-led intro, Kagen hits his listeners with a phenomenal vocal delivery. His performance is saturated in a luscious layer of reverb, exquisitely multi-tracked to bring us a wide and rich sonic palette. A hint of over-driven saturation permeates each of his words, providing “God Needs The Devil” with a deliciously gritty character.
It is not long before a steady rhythmic pulse ignites the arrangement, with a kick drum, distorted handclaps, and additional layers of guitar that expand the sonic landscape. Auxiliary vocal textures decorate the outer edges of the production in order to lend a cinematic dimension to the composition. The mood is dark and brooding and we simply cannot get enough it.
And although “God Needs The Devil” traverses a serious and emotionally-charged sense of urgency, this in no way hinders the vocal hook from achieving an epic, ear-worm level of glory. It enters the ears as though a plea or prayer, and shall remain within its listeners for days on end, echoing and resonating until fully consuming them.
About the track, Kagen adds: “‘God Needs The Devil’ is a metaphor for the human condition. It’s the persisting struggle to be good while having a dependence, or at least a false sense of dependence, on something evil. It means so much to me, and I hope you can find some piece of yourself in it.”
In a world that has been overrun by digital production tactics, Kagen appears to remain on an analog plain of existence, leaving his listener with a paragon of authentic craft. We hope that you enjoy “God Needs The Devil” as much as we do, but you will need to press that play button in order to find out.