If anyone outside hip hop has a right to sing about death, dying, and more death, it's Johnny Cash. Given the 68 year old's recent coma and bouts with a nervous system disorder and pneumonia, Solitary Man (in stores Oct. 17) shouldn't even exist. But Cash keeps coming, and in light of his travails, his covers of Tom Petty's ''I Won't Back Down,'' Nick Cave's electric chair homage ''The Mercy Seat,'' and Will Oldham's ode to depression ''I See a Darkness,'' will humble any and all Goth kids.
Cash's ''Field of Diamonds'' ponders mortality to an exquisite folk gospel melody, and he eerily inhabits the traditional ''Wayfaring Stranger,'' with its references to reuniting with deceased friends and family members. Though the Man in Black has rarely sounded blacker, producer Rick Rubin frames that deep sea voice with harmonies and churchly organs, making for a dark angel beauty of an album that's austere but welcoming. Neil Diamond's sullen title track, for instance, sounds as if it had been written for Cash all along.
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