B-Side Guys

“Stereo Junkie” sounds like it was beamed from the Haçienda in 1989, which is exactly what Dan Scott Forreal and Derek Sheehan intended, and the execution is sharp enough that the reference doesn’t feel like nostalgia tourism. The fuzzed-out guitars, dance beats, and soaring harmonies land with the kind of physical immediacy that Madchester at its best always had, but the song carries something that era’s euphoria usually didn’t: the knowledge of what comes after.

The concept is a double gesture Kewl Haze execute with more precision than the premise might suggest. On the surface, “Stereo Junkie” is a celebration of music as the purest available high, a pusherman narrative for rock devotees with an unrelenting appetite. Underneath that, Forreal and Sheehan are writing from hard-earned observation of friends and family who found that appetite harder to manage than they expected. The production holds both readings without forcing a choice between them. The sugar rush is real. So is the awareness sitting behind it.

The Philly duo spent four years making their debut album Suburban Sherpa, a process that involved professional sessions with Walkmen drummer Matt Barrick alongside the home studio work, and that investment is audible in the density of the arrangement. The breathy vocals ride on top of a rhythm section that keeps the dance-floor imperative intact while the guitars push the whole thing toward something heavier.

What makes “Stereo Junkie” work as a potential band anthem is that it doesn’t resolve the tension it sets up. The junkie in the title is you, the listener, and Kewl Haze are both your supplier and the ones watching the habit develop.