Home Before Dark : Neil Diamond : Review : Rolling Stone

"I hated sleeping around," a forlorn Neil Diamond sings on the opener from his second collaboration with Rick Rubin. "God knows it's lonely out there." The stripped—bare, acoustic song sets the tone for an album in which an emotionally naked Diamond repeatedly suggests that without his girlfriend — 36—year—old Rachel Farley — he'd be near suicide. Like Johnny Cash's Rubin—produced American Recordings series, Home Before Dark cuts the music down to its essence, scrapping the overproduction that has marred Diamond's albums since the Eighties. The best tracks — like his Natalie Maines duet, "Another Day (That Time Forgot)" — evoke early—Seventies classics like "I Am . . . I Said." But the album gets hokey in the second half with "The Power of Two," and Diamond veers into matchbox wisdom on "Slow It Down," a step—by—step guide to abandoning the fast track. "Take your time, and you'll find your time has a meaning," he sings. If that's true, then there's still time left for a third Rubin—produced disc — and a chance for him to finally get it right.