By Gina Morris
Anyone who witnessed one of Jeff Buckley's low-key solo dates, or who was fortunate enough to hear his ear-wrenching acoustic five-track mini-album "Live At Sin-e", will probably be well geared up for this remarkable debut. "Grace" is the achingly majestic work of a truly gifted man, which has little or nothing to do with the fact that his father happens to be the great avant garde folk hero Tim Buckley.
Though there are genetic similarities (identical eyebrows and chiseled good looks), Jeff's sorrowful meanderings and swooping, soulful ballads are not obviously inspired by Dad's "Happy Sad", more by Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks". It's impassioned, torch song poetry, with elements of hymnal innocence ("Corpus Christi", Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah") and yet, using his band to the full, Jeff creates enough scope to incude grungy and rocky diversions ("Eternal Life" and "Grace" respectively). And all the while his voice unfurls and drifts into pure emotive loveliness with gruff, raunchy inflections-like a choirboy serenading a hooker.
4/5
Anyone who witnessed one of Jeff Buckley's low-key solo dates, or who was fortunate enough to hear his ear-wrenching acoustic five-track mini-album "Live At Sin-e", will probably be well geared up for this remarkable debut. "Grace" is the achingly majestic work of a truly gifted man, which has little or nothing to do with the fact that his father happens to be the great avant garde folk hero Tim Buckley.
Though there are genetic similarities (identical eyebrows and chiseled good looks), Jeff's sorrowful meanderings and swooping, soulful ballads are not obviously inspired by Dad's "Happy Sad", more by Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks". It's impassioned, torch song poetry, with elements of hymnal innocence ("Corpus Christi", Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah") and yet, using his band to the full, Jeff creates enough scope to incude grungy and rocky diversions ("Eternal Life" and "Grace" respectively). And all the while his voice unfurls and drifts into pure emotive loveliness with gruff, raunchy inflections-like a choirboy serenading a hooker.
4/5
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