Just as there are Christmas carols and songs of the summer, there’s “Oh, it’s finally nice out today” music. These are the albums you listen to on the days you first notice the trees budding, when you decide to take those ten extra minutes to walk around at lunch, when the jacket you bring with you in the morning is too hot for 1 PM. We all have them, and here, 10 A.V. Club staffers pick ten of ours.
I want to have those blissful summer feelings and memories, but I don’t; the best I can do is acknowledge that summer just never worked out right for me, that the classic depiction of the season just isn’t what I experience. I think that’s why The Smoking Popes have always felt like a warm-weather band to me: singer/guitarist Josh Caterer’s crooning vocals are easy to get lost in, but they hide some pretty wistful lyrics.