Dead at age 30, Jeff Buckley left the world one completed studio album. Had he lived 30 years more, it's doubtful whether he'd have topped 1994's Grace.
It doesn't make his accidental drowning any less tragic, of course. He was partway through recording a second album and, despite his debut effort's sluggish sales, had garnered much praise for his songwriting and stunning multi-octave vocal performances.
Yet, like his father before him (Tim Buckley died of a heroin overdose at age 28), he'd created a pool of work that would resonate for decades.
Grace is a bold album. It flits from moody ballad to visceral heavy-rocker with scant regard for pigeonholing. It says rock can be pure, peaceful and heavenly as well as dirty, chaotic and hellish.
Best known of the 10 tracks is a cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Buckley, accompanied only by guitar, delivers a vocal performance that never fails to raise goose bumps on the skin. Few will listen without feeling its emotional pull. As the album's centrepiece, it stands for many as the best interpretation of one of the best songs ever written.
There are two other covers - Lilac Wine is a James Shelton song based on a version by Nina Simone, and the angelic Corpus Christi Carol is based on a 15th-century hymn. When the latter is thrown up against next track Eternal Life, the album's heaviest rocker, the juxtaposition is nothing short of thrilling. And very, very funny.
Buckley's real brilliance is in creating in the listener a compulsion to remain aboard Grace on its undulating journey. To get off at any stop along the way is to short-change oneself - it's what every great album achieves.
The drug-free high that comes with being shifted from one mental space to another is an addictive reward for those who'll commit. Take Grace with care.
