Columbia Records will release 12 Songs, the first new studio album from Neil Diamond in four years, on Tuesday, November 8.

One of the year's most heavily-anticipated new releases, 12 Songs pairs the pop music icon with legendary producer Rick Rubin. Producing a Neil Diamond album has been a long-time dream for Rubin, whose extraordinary resume spans the history of hip-hop from LL Cool J to Jay Z, the world of hardcore rock from Slayer to System Of A Down, and the pantheon of mythic stars from Tom Petty and Donovan to Mick Jagger and Johnny Cash's immortal Grammy-winning American Recordings series.

"After the first few meetings," writes Neil Diamond in his revelatory liner notes to 12 Songs, "I realized (Rick) loved music in the same way I did. For both of us it was visceral, passionate and could even be an elevating experience. It turned out that we served the same mistress - music, and that was to become our first real connection."

According to Neil, "I locked myself in the recording studio with a whole box of number 2 pencils, a big stack of my trusty yellow legal pads and a funky old three-quarter size Martin Guitar with an E minor chord that could break your heart….Rick was determined not to rush the process, but to wait until we got to the essence of the songs I was working on. I loved the sheer freedom of creating music for its own sake."

"Most of the songs were recorded with Neil playing and singing at the same time," said Rick Rubin in a Rolling Stone article (9/22/05) profiling the producer, "and it's a different animal. It's taking him back to being more of a singer-songwriter. He really blows me away."

When it came time to record 12 Songs, Rick Rubin assembled a sympathetic ensemble of musicians to capture the essence of Neil Diamond's extraordinary new songs, each of them a finely-wrought gem, soul-searching, honest, yearning, and powerful.

A core group of musicians made up of Mike Campbell (guitar) and Benmont Tench (piano/organ) from Tom Petty's Heartbreakers and guitarist Smokey Hormel (Beck, Tom Waits) and other musicians including the renowned Larry Knechtel (piano) and Billy Preston (organ) played on the album.

The track listing for 12 Songs is: "Oh Mary," "Hell Yeah," "Captain of a Shipwreck," "Evermore," "Save Me A Saturday Night," "Delirious Love," "I'm On To You," "What's It Gonna Be," "Man of God," "Create Me," "Face Me," and "We." A special digipak edition of 12 Songs will feature two bonus tracks: "Men Are So Easy" and an alternate version of "Delirious Love" with guest artist Brian Wilson.

"….judging by eight finished tracks," wrote Lorraine Ali, previewing 12 Songs for Newsweek (August 1, 2005), "this is the best work Diamond has done in 30 years."

You've encountered him before, but rarely like this. He's at the bar, nursing a drink and holding forth in that voice-of-God way. He calls himself a ''lucky old dreamer'' but worries he's ''too old to pretend'' there are happy endings. He admits he's been hurt and lied to, and that he's ''gotta say it fast'' because, as a man in his 60s, he's feeling more than a little perishable. He'll listen to your worries, but he's in need of solace and salvation himself, and he thinks he still may be able to find it with one last great love. He's a bit of a windbag, but you like him anyway, especially when he hauls out a well-trod idea like ''Be careful how time's spent, because it's never gonna last'' and makes it sound like anything but a cliché.

That's the Neil Diamond we hear on 12 Songs, and it's about time. Although he's still capable of melancholic magnificence (2001's ''I Haven't Played This Song in Years,'' a worthy successor to his underrated '70s ballads), Diamond has spent the last two decades in a purgatory of sparkly shirts, unremarkable Lite FM fodder, and concert crowds who still (groan) interject ''ba-ba-ba!'' into ''Sweet Caroline.''

Rick Rubin, his new producer, decided to downsize Diamond's music. Finally, the songs don't sound as if they were arranged to fill arenas; the singer's well- preserved, Corinthian-leather voice and softly strummed chords are the focus. Only once, on the overheated ''Delirious Love,'' does Diamond risk embarrassment by getting horny-old-guy frisky. Mostly, Rubin restores a graceful simplicity to the songs, from the bashful seduction ''Save Me a Saturday Night'' to the doleful dirge ''Oh Mary,'' and ''I'm On to You'' is a marvel: a rare snappish post-breakup putdown that sounds as if Diamond were stranded in a jazz cocktail bar.

12 Songs isn't merely a reprise of Rubin's work with Johnny Cash. Rubin may have wanted to present his new client as nakedly as he did Cash, but you can almost hear Diamond resisting. Songs that start simply — like ''Hell Yeah'' and ''Evermore''— gradually swell with the addition of billowy strings and stately pianos. That tension between Rubin's desire to pare it down and Diamond's tendency to amp it up makes for the best musical checks and balances; nothing gets too unplugged or too bombastic. And Chris Martin could learn a thing or two about crafting a virile, unsappy lean-on-me ode from ''Captain of a Shipwreck'' and ''What's It Gonna Be.''

Those expecting another ''Cherry, Cherry'' will be disappointed; those days are long gone. Yet 12 Songs sounds more natural — and more honest — than, say, the latest by the Rolling Stones. Granted, it does end with ''We,'' a song so corny it could have been a TV theme had television existed in 1925. It seems an odd way to wrap up, but actually, it's about right — the sound of that guy in the bar meandering out, a hint of a spring in his step and a cautious sense of hope in his head. Grade: A