Covers saturate Cat Power's "Jukebox"

Cat Power's newest album, "Jukebox," is a collection of covers that showcases the gritty, emotional voice that is Chan Marshall.

Following "The Greatest" in 2006, "Jukebox" is Cat Power's second album of covers, this time tackling classic jazz standards and folk songs.

A stunning compilation of 12 songs, the album has something for everyone.

Opening with a cover of Sinatra's "New York, New York," the album explores uncharted territory by taking familiar tunes and making them distinctly unrecognizable through both vocal and instrumental arrangement.

Gone is "'Ol Blue Eyes," replaced by Marshall, who, rather than singing about the glory of New York, is lamenting about "these little town blues." Blues makes the album new and refreshing.

Cat Power takes the James Brown classic "Lost Someone" and twists its melodies - Marshall's silky sonorous voice nailing loneliness.

The listeners are absorbed into Marshall's quivering voice as it wraps them in her pain, bass lightly strumming in the background.

Brown's classic becomes Cat Power's song entirely and the idea of a cover album is forgotten.

The band returns to familiar territory with a cover of Bob Dylan's "I Believe in You." After contributing to the "I'm Not There" soundtrack and covering two Dylan tracks on a previous cover album, Cat Power is a self-pronounced Dylan aficionado.

Marshall's take on "I Believe in You" is mellow and pleading, beckoning to the listener.

She invokes a Dylan-esque tone in her voice, and it's easy to imagine her hunched on a bar stool, cradling a vintage microphone on a dark, smoky stage.

The one original song on the album is entitled "Song to Bobby" and is one of its more enigmatic songs.

It is written to a mysterious Bobby, easily interpreted as "Bobby" Dylan, idolized in the semiromantic, semicreepy ballad.

Marshall passionately croons to Dylan, "Backstage pass in my hand/Giving you my heart was my only plan," in a way only an unrequited lover can.

Listeners feel as if they've intruded into a private conversation, and for a song so personal, it jumps out as pure and raw among the other tracks.

"Jukebox" visits both the eclectic and the popular, covering everything from Billie Holiday to Janis Joplin.

Each track is a gem, with its own personality and sense of self.

Holiday's "Don't Explain" is rash and regretful, while Joni Mitchell's "Blue" is tenderly romantic, with Marshall's voice inviting the listener to commit to her pain, her love and her tragedy.

Marshall battled alcoholism herself, and Jukebox's folksy undertones and bluesy sway is cemented by the real-life struggles of its mistress and narrator.

Cat Power's "Jukebox" is both a look back at classics and a novel reinterpretation of what made those hits beautiful.

Carefully peeling each song to its core, layer by layer, Marshall's vocals explore the entirety of the emotional spectrum, both breaking the listeners' hearts and inspiring their spirits. Precisely mellow, comfortably familiar and vocally original, "Jukebox" is an album that teaches the listeners something new each time they listen to it.