Sketches (For My Sweetheart the Drunk)

Perhaps the most talented "son act" in pop music, Jeff Buckley combined the often harrowing eclecticism of estranged papa Tim Buckley with the rock acrobatics of Robert Plant. This posthumously released collection of four-track demos and sessions helmed by Tom Verlaine indicates that Buckley's astonishing full-length debut, Grace, was no fluke. The young singer-songwriter puts his falsetto to good use on an extraordinary collection of original material, from the soulful "Everybody Here Wants You" to the psychedelic "Murder Suicide Meteor Slave." And while his bluesy take on Porter Wagoner's "Satisfied Mind" may not be as revelatory as his earlier version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," this album offers ample proof that Buckley was among his generation's most gifted voices. --Bill Forman