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.