Grace (New Version)

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Here's what they say about Jeff Buckley: "He died too young". Here's why they say it: Grace is simply one of the most amazing things you can do with your ears and a little digitally-encoded disc. He inherited the voice of his father, the legendary Tim Buckley--seven octaves, each of them only just enough to cram his big feverish dreams into--but his music was all his own. Think Van Morrison's Astral Weeks on drugs--but then drugs could give some kind of comfort, and there's no comfort in Grace; just constant flux between crippling despair and an almost violent joy. When "Last Goodbye" unfolds it's third different middle-eight of Bollywood strings and Buckley's ecstatic scatting, it's hard to believe an ordinary human could have had a hand in something so extraordinary. --Caitlin Moran

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2009-01-02 rating:
This album is beautiful
I recently borrowed this album from a friend and within 5 minutes of listening i was utterly amazed. The music that this man creates moves you passionately. Within the next two weeks i had bought the album and bought another 2 cd's called "live at sine" which is from Jeff's earlier days. The music moved me in a way that i found it hard to listen to "grace" in the prescence of other people and had to listen to it solitary. For anyone who wishes to be moved by music this album is perfect.

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review by: date: 2008-12-29 rating:
Not for the faint-hearted
This is not the sort of album you listen to. This is the sort of album that swaggers into the room, commandeers your favourite chair, drinks your beer, and makes you ask permission to go to the loo. Your girlfriend probably won't like it but that's only because she knows it would always pick her best friend over her.

Don't buy this if you can't handle it.

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review by: bigdave2020 date: 2008-12-22 rating:
A desert island disc... for life...
From opener to closer this record is a work of undiluted Genius. It depths are many and its influence far reaching. The album has a feel and atmosphere that was ground breaking at the time and to my ears clearly influencing Radiohead's 'The Bends' and many other albums to the present day. If you are new to the unique legend that is Jeff Buckley the sound of the album and some of the song arrangements are not instant, but after a few listens the quality grows and becomes apparent. His vocal range and diverse influences are demonstrated in full and his band sound tight and crisp. The tracks contain the moods of reflection, melancholy, anger, questions unanswered and a hopeless plea to a past lover, so if you want an honest and bare musical journey you have come to the right place. The tragedy of his untimely departure does emphasize the haunting nature of this album, possibly something that is unavoidable now, but thankfully the numerous posthumous releases of demos and live performances (some of which I am sure he wouldn't want to be released into the public domain) have not tarnished what will always remain Jeff Buckley's one and only studio album completed during his lifetime.

The pivotal point of this album is the cover version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. The first time I heard this I was traveling in the car, and had to pull to over to listen until it had finished I was so moved by it. Even the heavy use of this track in various US dramas has not diminished the beauty of this song. Not all of us need associated slow mo TV images to feel moved. Listen to the song and find what it means to you. I have not met anybody yet who has not been touched by the performance of this song.

Anything less than five stars for this fantastic quality body of music is an injustice. Some oddly resent the legend that Jeff Buckley has become, but music fans will not care. This album is a desert island disc, a life time top ten album list resident. Over a decade since its original release, Grace remains a reference album in my collection and I cannot see that changing any time soon. If you have yet to purchase Grace do so now, give it a few listens, and then wonder why you hadn't bought it before.

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review by: Gus Thomas date: 2008-12-01 rating:
Not a Disgrace but Hardly Epoch-Making
It seems to me that the best songs/tracks on this CD are (perhaps inevitably) the three standards, ie, "Hallelujah", "Lilac Wine" and "Corpus Christie Carol."

With regard to the first of these, I can't say I agree with a previous reviewer that Jeff Buckley's rendering totally supersedes the original.
Leonard Cohen , with that memorable, bantering growl of his, makes Buckley sound somewhat like a tearful choirboy!

It was interesting to hear the Britten piece but it comes from a choral work and Buckley's solo, pop-folk treatment - though possibly OK as a concert encore item - does not do it justice. But, on the other hand, "Lilac Wine" comes over very effectively and is the best recording of this song that I have heard.

As for the rest: some nice sounds but, on the whole, it strikes me as
being the usual the usual rock band stuff, including lots of sound and fury, signifying, one suspects, very little.


review by: goof date: 2008-10-21 rating:
One of the greatest albums of all time.
A ray of sunlight in humanity's tear.

This album is sublime from beginning to end. Stunning instrumentation, stunning vocals, stunning artistic vision, more passion than I have ever heard recorded, feverish dreamscapes and spiritual invocations, this is rock music's finest hour. Full stop. Buy this album. Now. You will be blown away!

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