Brontez Purnell, the bad boy of the indie rock/literature intersection, has returned with his Trio for a new single and music video entitled “If You Can’t Help Me.” There are many, many things I like about this track, so I will list them. The doo-wop harmonies; the crispy, rhythmic guitar; the swirling organs; Purnell’s extremely engaging vocal performance; the galloping drums; the audio evidence that Bay Area punk and indie rock would have been very cool as a surf-rock tribute subgenre.
“‘If You Can’t Help Me’ is an old gospel tune that Brontez started singing to us on tour,” shares House of Feelings labelhead and the Trio’s drummer Matty Fasano. “We improvised an arrangement and played it onstage at TV Eye and loved it so much we recorded it with Ben Greenberg. Giving a garage rock feel to a gospel song turned out to really hit for us. We wanted to make a video that captured the spontaneity of the song, and so we found an old TV and a studio, and smiled for each other.”
Check out said video for the song below.
