METAL FOR A BRIGHT, BRIGHT SUNSHINY DAY

It doesn’t feel like spring out today – it feels like summer. The sun has been going down later and later and the weather has been getting nicer and nicer, and now, all of sudden, it’s 90 (!) degrees out. I don’t think it will last all that long – the East Coast often gets one last snowstorm in April before the nice weather begins in earnest – but it has made for some very relaxing, long walks as of late. (Not hurting: that the ladies of NYC have wasted no time adjusting their wardrobes appropriately. It’s like a Rock of Love casting call out there, except, mercifully, with fewer surgical “enhancements.”)

The problem is, when the doom n’ gloom of metal is your music of choice, it can be hard to find an appropriate soundtrack for such a beautiful day.

Of course, the first place my taste buds usually go are sugary confections: old hard rock albums, be they by  Ozzy or Van Halen or Motley Crue, are pretty perfect for this weather. Unfortunately, I’m in a weird place where I feel like “I’ve listened to Dr. Feelgood/1984/No More Tears eight-trillion times each, and I want something a little less familiar.” But there are no recent pop metal releases that really scratch my itch; I’m already tired of a certain guitar player’s solo album, and while Sevendust’s Cold Day Memory is pretty good, the lyrics and melodies are typically angsty, and I’m just not feeling very angsty right now.

To that same end, a lot of my favorite heavier records from the first quarter of 2010 put me in the wrong mind-set; I still love Triptykon’s Epista Demonsauce (or however you spell it), but it’s just too bleak for now. (Oddly enough, we’re seeing Opeth perform the entirety of Blackwater Park tonight, including the song “Bleak.”)

For whatever reason, this line of thought brought me back to one of my favorite albums of last year, Chimaira’s The Infection. The leisurely, head-bobbing pace of that record is pretty much perfect an extended sunshine mosey to nowhere in particular (especially if you’re high); the hooks are so painfully catchy that it’s pretty easy to ignore the lyrical content, which is, by and large, pretty hostile. I know there’s no shortage of irony in enjoying the extended sun while listening to a song called “The Disappearing Sun,” but there you have it.

So now it’s your turn, oh beloved readers: what metal is appropriate for terrific weather and actually being in a decent mood? Make your suggestions below.

-AR