Sometimes, I just can’t help but like an album. Maybe it isn’t the fanciest music in the world, but it’s beautiful and good nonetheless. Yenisei recently released their third studio album, and it is a joy. It’s called Home, rather appropriately, and it was released on October 25th.
Yenisei comes to us from Poland. You may remember my review for their sophomore album Reflections back in 2021, an album that is still dripping with melodic gravy. I also enjoy their 2019 debut, The Last Cruise. The current lineup includes Grzegorz Cisek on bass, Michał Gawroński on drums, Piotr Grobelny and Piotr Klamiński on guitars, and Rafał Piniaź on keys, pads, and synths.
The band plays a haunting, sometimes melancholic post-rock, but they offer more than that genre typically provides. For one, they don’t rely on the almighty crescendo; in fact, they rarely use them. Instead, their version of post-rock is rife with electronic elements, heavier riffs at times, and brilliant use of musical space. Instead of every track being a slowburn that explodes near the end, they utilize transitions, textures, and tightly expressed emotions to take us to other places in not only the cosmos, but also within ourselves.
I want to emphasize this point. Yenisei creates music that makes you smile. No, it isn’t overtly technical. I wouldn’t even call it epic. But from the moment you start one of their albums, you will smile from the sheer welcoming warmth, the undeniable understanding of beauty, and the nostalgic feelings that will grow within your chest.
And Home is no different. This record feels like finding adventure and sanctuary within the familiar, within our homes and personal spaces. The album isn’t all cozy feelings, but the overall arc is one of confidence and realized tranquility. It does this by always taking us back to utter elegance.
Home is also significant because, as far as I can recall, it contains the first Yenisei song with vocals. That would be “Insecure” featuring vocals from Maciej Kowalski of .WAVs. I want to highlight this piece because it is extremely well-done, as if the band has been writing vocally-driven songs all this time. The way the main melodic guitar lick interplays with the catchy chorus is an absolute dream. I’m very happy with this track.
But it isn’t my favorite overall. I think the first two songs “A Walk in the Sky” and “Crickets” are both wonderful and mood-setting, but the album really gets going with the single “This Place Was A Shelter”, a piece with deep connection and emotion inside of it. I love the electronic interlude and feelings of loss and emptiness that feel so damned familiar.
The final three songs are just as good. “We Are Saved” has probably the heaviest section on the album as it layers peaceful melody with electronic accents and raw distortion. “Insecure” follows and leads into the closer “Forgotten”, a celestial and whimsical piece that tugs at my heartstrings. The guitar work in the second half is particularly strong and confident, and so the album gives us emotional closure.
Yenisei are one of the best post-rock bands around, I think, and that’s because of their use of light and shade, textures and expressions, and glorious space. Their music isn’t incredibly complicated, but it’s gorgeous and personal, and sometimes that’s all I want.
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The PROG Mind 
Yes, it’s exactly the music I needed now and added to my favs. Not too soft, not too loud, not too simple, not too complicated. Exactly at the right spot. Thank you very much.
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