‍Brontez Purnell is going to retire from punk rock. Or he was. No–he is. Actually, like any punk emeritus worth their salt, the Oakland-based musician, choreographer, and writer is engaged in a perpetual, coquettish waltz with the idea of retiring from the art form that’s been declared dead since it started. Purnell won’t retire from rock. Not yet. Just one more album. Maybe another. Perhaps another one after that. Today, Purnell–alongside bassist Josephine Network and drummer Matty Fasano–proves that he’s still proudly ensnared in that pesky, infinite three-step as he debuts new garage rock collective, the Brontez Purnell Trio, with new single and music video, “If You Can’t Help Me,” part of “Forgive Me, Philip” 7,” all out via House of Feelings, produced by Ben Greenberg.

“Yes, punk rock is dead.” Purnell pens in newest essay introducing the 7” in Talkhouse: “That said, so is Hip Hop, so is EDM, so is Country Music, so is Pop Music. We’ve all been rendered graveyard dwellers and oh god, the future is a terrible place, but since time keeps going so will we it seems, I will have some coffee, put on some eyeliner and tell you about how I remarried rock & roll (for the 82nd time).”

If Purnell is a punk rock undertaker, the boneyard to which he attends is an overwhelmingly verdant one: “If You Can’t Help Me” is an energetic offering from the three stalwarts of the DIY scene, the single a buzzy spin on an old gospel tune Purnell remembers from childhood. Complete with fizzy maracas and sunny riffs, “If You Can’t Help Me” grins at the listener, Purnell challenging: If you can’t help me/ Please don’t stop me/Move out of my wayyyy…do not try and block me!

Listen to this song with broken headphones on an afternoon in late August; slap the soles of your rubber-toed sneakers against the hot asphalt to the beat while jogging to catch a bus that you’re definitely not paying for, and try not to feel jubilant. 

On side A of the 7”, the Brontez Purnell Trio reimagines “Forgive Me, Philip,” a delightfully squirmy track originally released as part of Purnell’s 2020 EP, White Boy Music. With producer Greenberg at the helm, the song coalesces around the clean bones of the emotive original, adding sonic ligaments; veins; musculature, vivifying the song until it has a body and the body walks and the body dances. The body grabs Brontez Purnell and entraps him, once again, in this eternal waltz.

Punk rock will never let Brontez Purnell–Oakland luminary and eternal rock and roller–retire. So, what’s Purnell going to do about it? What’s next? “[A] seven LP rock opera based on my complicated feelings around, I dunno, The Civil War or something? (I haven’t actually decided yet.),” Purnell writes. “But I just shoplifted this vintage Jaguar from Guitar Center and am currently writing some catchy ass tunes on it, so stay tuned.”