Neil Diamond: Home Before Dark

Producer Rick Rubin made

himself the go-to guy for late-career musical reinvention with the 1994 Johnny

Cash album American Recordings, a spare, flash-free masterpiece that put Cash

and his music front and center. Rubin never found another subject as rich as

Cash, probably because there aren't any. But Neil Diamond's stark,

Rubin-produced 2005 album 12 Songs, while not an American Recordings-caliber classic, was even

more revealing than Cash's work with Rubin. Where Cash was a neglected master

whose classic work had never been forgotten, Diamond's run of hit singles had

been overshadowed by show-biz gaudiness and dreck like "Heartlight."

With 12 Songs, Diamond delivered a

defiant, yet surprisingly mellow set dedicated to the theme of not going gently

into that good night. Home Before Dark provides more of the same. It's sure to

please its predecessor's fans, but the filler-to-killer ratio here is skewed a

little too far in the wrong direction. Late-album tracks like "Slow It Down"

and "The Power Of Two" sound interchangeable. But while the Diamond who wrote

insanely catchy songs like "Kentucky Woman" and "Cherry, Cherry" never shows

up, the ruminative crooner of "I Am… I Said" is well represented by "If I Don't

See You Again," "Pretty Amazing Grace," and "Another Day (That Time Forgot)," a

nicely matched duet with Natalie Maines. Diamond's battle against time and

cheese rages on.