Diamond Shines On

Neil Diamond's next step away from the cornball image he perpetuated in the past four decades is much more comfortable than the first.

For all the critical gushing about 12 Songs - myself included - it now feels a bit like eagerly-awaited sex with a new flame - pretty good, but inevitably awkward. Beyond "Captain of the Shipwreck," the songs haven't held up, and he gave into big arrangements on a few songs ("Delirious Love" with Brian Wilson felt overwrought, when it just needed Diamond and his guitar.

Plus, the copy protection/spyware slapped on the disc wasn't kind to computers.

All those years of schmaltz took a few scrubbings to wear away, and Home Before Dark is a gem almost completely free of that cumbersome past. Diamond and uber-producer Rick Rubin walkin lock-step on their sophomore effort.

By comparison, Home Before Dark feels even more stripped down -- there's not a lick of electric guitar or a drum fill to be found. For all his years of dressed-up music, the sparser setting allows Diamond to shine. The goofiness that torpedoed some tunes on 12 Songs.

The two lead tracks, "If I Don't See You Again" and "Pretty Amazing Grace," set the tone. The opener is a seven-minute elegy for a relationship better off ending too soon, and "Grace" comes on with a dark acoustic hook that strikes quickly.

Even the duet with Natalie Maines works. Like the best songs from his career, Diamond keeps it simple lyrically and musically. While the words are simple, Diamond deepens their complexity in his arrangements, setting him apart from the garden variety songsmiths - see "Whose Hands Are These."

Home Before Dark is hardly perfect; the "Subterranean Homesick" intro to "Slow It Down" feels woefully out of place, and a few other lyrics are mildly cringe-inducing. But with Rubin's usual session players - Smokey Hormel and Heartbreakers' Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell - the music always covers for those lapses.

Nearing 70, Diamond hasn't produced a Time Out of Mind or American Recordings - it's too upbeat, and Diamond's well-preserved voice bears none of the death's door wear that saddened Johnny Cash's last offerings.

Diamond's late-career renaissance goes on, and his forward-looking songs never attempt to recapture past glory.