“Montage!” the lead singer of CHARMPIT shouts before a short, surfy guitar solo leads into the final, celebratory chorus on their track ‘West West Westfield’. The London-based band consists of members who identify in press materials only by their first names—Anne-Marie, Rhi, Alex, and Estella—recently released their record Cause A Stir (on blue vinyl, for those colorful collectors) on Specialist Subject Records.

The track is replete with humor and pep. A slow, twangy intro with tremolo chords and references to SUV’s and parking lots impatiently transforms into a surf bop. Along with the heightened banality of quatrains such as “Who are they?/No way./That’s hot./Second thought: maybe not!” are critiques of superficial image obsession and urban sprawl.

CHARMPIT, in their moniker and in their music, expresses the pained joy of co-habitation in this “slush-and-gush” world.