Loveland

Loveland is John Sykes's second solo album, built around ballads rather than the hard-rock attack he was known for. The project began as a seven-track EP of ballads proposed by Mercury's Japanese division. Sykes, who still had songs left over, suggested expanding it instead into a full-length record, and the resulting ten-track album appeared on 25 July 1997, reaching number 13 on the Japanese charts. The guitar here does not overwhelm through speed or sheer volume of notes. It traces the outline of the vocal, leaves space around it, and sits at the same level as Sykes's own singing. He produced the album himself, with Noel Golden handling mixing and engineering. Marco Mendoza and Reggie Hamilton on bass, Abe Laboriel Jr. and Curt Bisquera on drums, and Alex Alessandroni and Jamie Muhoberac on keyboards give the sound composure rather than bulk. At the center of the record is the third track, "Don't Hurt Me This Way", a re-recording of his 1982 single "Please Don't Leave Me" that retains Phil Lynott's vocal. By connecting an old document to a present-day performance, it casts a backward-looking light across the album. With the hard-rock posture set aside, Loveland captures Sykes plainly as a writer of melody.