Avalanche recordings presents Everyday I Get Closer to the Light From Which I Came, the latest offering from British post-metal band Jesu. The brainchild of Justin Broadrick (Napalm Death, Godflesh), on Everyday… Jesu weaves a com plexweb connecting a variety of styles from shoegaze to metal...from ambient to orchestral. Despite having a slew of releases on labels I’ve quite enjoyed over the years, namely Hydra Head and Robotic Empire, I never quite got around to delving into Jesu’s catalog too deeply. So I was eager to see if Everyday… would make a good entryway into the Jesu lexicon.

Everyday… offers 5 tracks that feel cloaked in a somber atmosphere. The mood is sonically evoked through melodic ambience, shoegazey elements, orchestral moments, and repetitive (often aggressive) guitar lines. However, even during it’s heaviest moments, there’s an undeniable pop sensibility the permeates the album. Of course that’s a huge oversimplification as a lifetime of Broadrick’s musical influences are perceptible through the 42+ minutes that make up Everyday…

The album opens with “Homesick.” It’s a melancholy piece (well they all sound sad to me) that threads My Bloody Valentine-esque guitar fuzz with heavier guitar repetition as a drum machine pumps along in the background. It almost sounds as if a music box is playing in the distance during the later half of the track. It’s a fitting title as I imagine a film being played to this music, with a protagonist getting sentimental and waxing nostalgic on times past.

“Comforter” could almost pass for a Sigur Rós song mixed with some heavier guitar in track’s mid section. “Everyday” features strong bass lines, rhythm drum machine beats, and brighter guitar plucking, sounding something like a heavy lullabye. The disc’s penultimate track “The Great Leveller,” also happens to be the most epic track on the disc. Clocking in at over 17 minutes, the track feels like a series tracks strewn together to create one mammoth piece. It’s an engrossing synthesis of orchestral pieces, booming percussion, heavy guitar and even some horn. It’s a fitting focal point to an enthralling album.

Diversity is key on this album and I think Jesu offers up enough variety on Everyday… to appeal to everyone from the shoegaze crowd to metalheads and everyone in between. As someone who was uninitiated prior to this album, looks like Jesu got a new convert.