Jeff Buckley’s latest posthumous release, ‘You And I’, raises the question about the late singer’s ongoing ‘career’ and longevity. One must ask where the line is drawn between the faithful desire for more from adoring fans, and the bastardisation of the artist’s legacy. Will we soon remember Buckley for his gritty, less than perfect Sunday afternoon recordings, and start to forget the sublime masterpiece which was ‘Grace’? Well, it would be difficult to forget ‘Grace’, but then we might ask ourselves this other question: if Buckley were alive today, would he be comfortable releasing these recordings?

The answer, almost certainly, would be ‘no’. While there are some beautiful covers on this latest record, there is never the kind of greatness which the artist’s fully-produced music achieved: those times in a song when Buckley’s voice rises with a ferocious velocity, seeming as though it will never stop. And besides this, there is still that constant, underlying shabbiness to everything that we first witnessed in the posthumous ‘Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk’. This is not to say that the mastering of the songs on ‘You And I‘ does not deserve credit.

The basic 4-track recordings have been carefully brought to life by maximising the clarity of sound. But even while the riffing/rambling which is Dream Of You And I (a song on ‘You And I’) is somewhat beautiful, it is only so when one takes the piece within the context of the singer’s death. As a standalone piece of music: well, it’s not much. The majority of these recordings were never meant to be anything more than little musical post-its. No matter how well they were re-mastered, they were never meant to be heard by the world.

Even still, there is sentimental goodness to be found in this release. Buckley’s rendition of Bob Dylan’s Just Like A Woman opens the record. It is classic Jeff: warm, jangly, beautiful. Just as he did with Kanga Roo or Hallelujah, he manages to take a beautiful song and bring it even further; he makes it his own. As a song, Just Like A Woman showcases Buckley’s evocative style, his poignant, heartbreaking talent. His voice lulls us along, or lashes out when we feel too familiar.

A cover of Sly & the Family Stone’s Everyday People is a highlight. Buckley’s smooth and reserved performance of Jerry & the Pacemaker’s Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying is beautiful. These are great songs being played by one of the most talented musicians of all time. And yet, there is a bittersweet element to hearing these tracks. There is a distinct feeling of watering down, of stretching out the late singer’s thin catalogue of recorded music.

The record ends with a Led Zeppelin cover, which is by no means Buckley’s best, followed by another Smith’s song: ‘I Know It’s Over’ from 1986’s ‘The Queen Is Dead‘. It is a fitting end to the album – almost too fitting – so that we can sense whoever put this album together trying to pull at our heartstrings.

Yet there is always that underlying feeling of, ‘please, just leave it alone already’. This feeling was already present with the release of ‘Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk‘. By now, we must wonder if there is any love left for the music anymore, or if the cash crop has run dry.

There are still some positives. After all, we still learn a little more about Jeff Buckley: the vast musical range of the artist is glaringly apparent here, from The Smiths’ The Boy With The Thorn In His Side to the slide guitar, deep-south Booker T ditty Poor Boy Long Way from Home. Buckley’s guitar playing and voice can surround you, containing a certain ambiguous eastern mysticism, a meeting of Americana and Qawwali.

There is a forced quality to the record, which can be encapsulated by it ending in a song with the lyrics ‘And I know it’s over/ Still I cling/ I don’t know where else I can go/ It’s over, it’s over, it’s over.’ Perhaps Legacy Recordings need to take a line from Morrissey, to admit, sadly, that it’s over, it’s over, it’s over.