Jeff Buckley

“YOU & I”

Columbia Records / Sony Legacy

Jeff Buckley’s talent was to find the heart of a song as he swooped in and out of the melody, using his multi-octave range, his whisper-to-a-scream dynamics, and his extreme shifts in tempo to turn a song into an emotional journey.

On “You & I,” a collection of 1993 solo studio recordings made before his debut album, Buckley sounds like he’s finding his way but hasn’t quite determined his best paths through the eight covers and two originals.

An early version of “Grace” and a tentative sketch of “You and I,” a song Buckley never finalized before he drowned in 1997, are revealing as studies in his creative process. The covers range widely, from a perky version of Sly & the Family Stone’s “Everyday People” to an energetic take on Led Zeppelin’s “Night Flight” to two earnest Smiths songs.

The choices offer fans insight into Buckley’s influences, but there’s nothing here as fully realized, for instance, as his definitive cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

— Steve Klinge,

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Various Artists

“SOUTHERN FAMILY”

Low Country Sound / Elektra Records

If there’s a unifying figure in the Nashville country-flavored singer-songwriter renaissance, it’s Dave Cobb. The producer has helmed projects by Grammy-winners Chris Stapleton and Jason Isbell, as well as Sturgill Simpson and Shooter Jennings, while branching out with the Boston pop quartet Lake Street Dive.

The Cobb-assembled “Southern Family” showcases that Music City community with a set of songs that aim to say something meaningful about blood ties and Southern identity. In addition to Stapleton (and his wife, Morgane), Isbell and Jennings, the collection gathers songs by Miranda Lambert and Anderson East, among others. (Simpson is notably absent.)

With Isbell’s blue-collar “God Is a Working Man” and Brandy Clark’s unflinching portrait of an elderly couple, “I Cried,” “Southern Family” peaks high, and Lambert, East, Holly Williams, and Brent Cobb — a distant cousin of the producer — all do good work.

What drags it down, however, is the perhaps inevitable tendency toward misty-eyed sentimentality, as softhearted big lugs Zac Brown and Jamey Johnson go, respectively, on heart-tuggers “Grandma’s Garden” and “Mama’s Table.”

— Dan DeLuca,

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Aurora

“ALL MY DEMONS GREETING ME AS A FRIEND”

Glassnote Records

Fears and sorrows hold a radiant gleam on “All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend,” the rapturous debut album by 19-year-old Norwegian singer and songwriter Aurora.

“Conqueror,” the single she released in February, opens with her singing, “Broken mornings, broken nights and broken days in between” and goes on to a chorus that proclaims her loneliness: “I’ve been looking for the only one/But you don’t seem to come my way.” Yet the music nullifies any distress. The verses have a smiley lilt over a snappy backbeat, and the chorus marches with pealing major chords as Aurora’s voice multiplies all over the place. Despite the lyrics, she’s completely, irrepressibly self-sufficient.

“Conqueror” is the pop bait for a more introspective album, full of thoughts about solitude, loss, mortality and the tenacity — signaled by the music as much as the words — to endure them.

Aurora, whose last name is Aksnes, has a high, pure voice imbued with a serene conviction that can seem childlike or ageless, hinting at fellow Scandinavian singers like Lykke Li and Bjork; her melodies hint at Celtic and sometimes Asian music. Her voice also lends itself to the endless layering that becomes both her shield and her consolation.

The songs often begin with the singer alone against an eerie backdrop, contemplating a merciless natural world or confessing to anxieties — thoughts as bleak as drowning, in “Under the Water,” or being murdered, in “Murder Song (5,4,3,2,1).” But sooner or later, a beat arrives, harmonies unfold, and Aurora is saved, yet again, by her overdubbed sisterhood.

ON TOUR: April 8, 2016 — Doug Fir Lounge, Portland; www.dougfirlounge.com.

— Jon Pareles,

New York Times