Song Spotlight: Brett Detar – “A Soldier’s Burden”

2013 is fresh out of the oven and I’ve already got some great music for you kids!

L.A. based/Pennsylvania native Brett Detar has spent the time between his last album, 2010’s excellent Bird in the Tangle (Ravensong Records) in his words “…holed up like a hermit in the recording studio, emerging only occasionally for coffee or to walk my dog Waylon.”

What he really means is he has written the score for a #1 box office films (Paramount Picture’s The Devil Inside) has the makings for a new album as well as odds, sods and “b-sides and rarities that may or may not see the light of day.”

One gem mined from this self-imposed seclusion is the new cut “A Soldier’s Burden.” Detar’s gently picked guitar and drum and fiddle accompaniment gently ebbs toward a lush arrangement belying it’s dark message. That of a soldier confronting the harrowing and cold realities of battle. Fittingly the song’s finale echos strains of the Civil War era classic “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

“A Soldier’s Burden” shows us Detar’s time away has been reflective and fruitful. I look forward to the release of a full album later this year. Pick up the mp3 of “A Soldier’s Burden” for free over at brettdetar.com/ and pick up a t-shirt while you’re over there.