Brunch Drop Double A-Side Singles "Please Kill Me" and "Man Alive," Play Brooklyn Tonight

Burlington, VT rock band Brunch released a double A-side single today, August 13, 2026. The two tracks, "Please Kill Me" and "Man Alive," are out now, and the band is playing a release show tonight at Purgatory in Brooklyn, NY.

The four members are Philip Bern (guitar), Mason Kosman (bass), Ayden Flanigan (drums), and Cameron Mincar (guitar). They formed during the COVID-19 pandemic after meeting as philosophy students at the University of Vermont. Their 2023 debut album Parasocial was produced by Urian Hackney, whose credits include Iggy Pop, Interpol, and the Armed. Vermont outlet Seven Days called it "one of the strongest, strangest rock albums of the year." They followed it with the 2024 EP DOGINYA and a 2025 live EP, Live at Robot Dog.

"Please Kill Me" takes its name from the 1996 oral history of punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. The band describes the song's sound this way: "The song sounds almost like it could belong to any decade without exactly belonging to any of them." The track comes with a music video shot at Devil's Bowl Speedway, billed as New England's fastest dirt track. The band set up in the middle of the track after a race and performed alongside their friend driving a van around the circuit. The band recalled one moment from the shoot: "Halfway through the race there was a huge four car pileup that took a construction crew 30 minutes to remove from the track while everyone watched. You can see in the video our reactions to the crash and the clean-up. The cars were totaled but thankfully none of the drivers were hurt."

"Man Alive" moves in a different direction, layering synthesizers over a rock arrangement. The band says the song pulls from the work of Jorge Luis Borges, David Lynch, James Joyce, and Haruki Murakami. "It's about struggling with the difficulties of being a human while holding onto radical hopefulness and love for others," the band said. "It's a song about radical antagonisms; light and darkness, dreams and reality, each defining itself by its own opposite."

The music video for "Please Kill Me" is a case study in doing a lot with limited resources. A borrowed van, a racetrack, a handheld camera, and one day of access produced a piece with a clear visual identity. For independent artists thinking about how to make visuals on a budget, the Devil's Bowl shoot is worth a look.

Brunch's release show at Purgatory in Brooklyn is tonight. The band says they are already working on a new album.