Lighthawk’s Mason Pitzel hopes his warm and inviting home-recorded EP helps soothe your tired soul.
We might never receive the deluge of bedroom pop records that were supposed to come out of COVID-19, but there will certainly be some of these records released before the vaccine arrives. Hope This Helps by Lighthawk (aka Mason Pitzel) could fit in this category — if your definition is wide enough — but it really has little to do with the pseudo-retro of bedroom giants like Mac DeMarco, instead borrowing bits and pieces from four decades of indie rock.
Hope This Helps feels like lying under a warm blanket after spending just enough time in public to trigger my anxiety but getting home before it bubbles to the surface: ”I am going to be ok”. The songs don’t sound like they were recorded in Pitzel’s house (neither did Wares’ “Survival” – also recorded by Pitzel) but the record stays away from glossy over-production, making it easy listening in the background and a rewarding one in the fore. The way Pitzel utilizes guitars to fill every corner with melody is pretty special and it’s surprising that there are so few “hooks” for all the great melody we are treated to. The result is somewhere between Silkworm, Guided by Voices, Sloan, and yes, Edmonton compatriot Mac DeMarco: Lighthawk is soothing me from the big things in the world and wasting no time in doing it.
