James Labrie SIDE BY SIDE Comparison! (Pull me Under LIVE Vocal Analysis 1993 AND 2017!) 

Thank you all so much for the support! I hope that this clears up some of the confusion surrounding James and his vocals. Please ask me any questions you might have! www.Patreon.com/ZachAnsley

Me: Oh wow 50 minutes! No offense Zach but there's no way I'm watching the whole thi- Also Me: *Watches the whole thing*

James tried to record Images and Words with rasp vocal, but the producer David Prater didn't allowed and demanded clean vocals.

Extremely interesting, thanks for sharing your insights. Almost overloaded with information, but I like that. Keep up the excellent work!

I'd like your opinion on JLB on the current tour, I feel like he's approaching the higher notes with a slightly different technique

“I do not know what he does to make that sound” haha lol

As always, great video Zach, love you and cheers from Poland!

In hindsight, all those years of "An Evening With Dream Theater" shows where they played for like 3 hours were probably really, really bad for James as well. I'm sure it made tons of business sense (no opener = more money for the band) but it wasn't a wise decision long term. Boy are they regretting that now...

One thing that I find interesting about James is that you can watch his bootlegs from 1992-93, and his voice sounds great in some, and fatigued in others. But in 1994, the bootlegs that exist show him sounding (arguably) better when singing the Images songs 1-2 years after they toured for them (and of course in some of the shows he still sounds fatigued but good). His rasp had improved, and he could still hit the high notes with ease, even on the not-so-good nights. It makes me wonder how long his voice would have lasted if he hadn't had the food poisoning incident. He's had several recovery periods, from 1997, 2003-2008 (He sung the middle section of Voices at a show in Venuzuela I think), and in 2011-2012. In 2015 he really started to fatigue more and more until he did the Ayreon Live shows where he sounded perfect! Like wtf james, are you good or not?? haha. I think he still has it in him, he should just lower the range of the melodies he sings for future albums.

Thanks for putting the effort and producing all these great analyses. Especially when it comes to James LaBrie, your videos helped me personally as a fan, understand his vocal changes better. And the points you mention regarding him probably being coached by a teacher who couldn't figure out his voice type, actually fits his quotes here and there and the band\s account in their official biography, Lifting Shadows. Cheers from Iran

Very interesting video. Not sure how I ended up here as a drummer, but enjoyed it all the same. As someone who has played live shows (min 60+ per year) for over 20 years, I’d say all the rest of the band want from their singer is good pitch (a lot better than James displays in video 2!!), learnt lyrics and good audience rapport. Anything else is a bonus! I hope that’s not over simplifying what you all do! 😜

Love your videos, Zach! Really interesting to see an objective analysis, it's definitely more of a rarity in the age of social media!

hey man thanks for doing these videos they're very interesting. glad to see professionals on this platform not just bullshit

Great analysis!!! I realy enjoy your video so much, and l like the fact that your video are long because you analyse them deeper, l realy wish you to be more deeper in your analysis and in your future video. You re doing this great, keep doing it!!!

I truly appreciate you being so respectful and objective. The guy currently sounds awful, and so he did in 2017. He can no longer be taken seriously, but somehow you managed to pull off a great video-analysis. Congrats.

James’ vocal range is generally amazing (he’s one of my favourite singers of all time) but having been in bands that have done Dream Theater covers myself (specifically from the Images And Words era), I’ve been cautious about using too much rasp in my clean vocals, for the reasons you’ve explained.

Glad to see you have more patrons now. To reiterate something I sent you on Discord the other day, you said in an old video that you might do a video on warmups one day. That would be amazing.

Great video (as ever)! Your videos tend to have a long duration, but whenever I watch them I feel absorbed because you explain things in such a didactic and also technical way that it's impossible to feel tired or bored. About James, I think it's important to say that he's had many different styles during his career. He adopted rasp on his voice between 1992 and 2003, but he used it most extensively during the second half of Images and Words tour (not in 1992, as we can see on RU-vid videos) and on Waking Up the World tour (including in 1995, after the food poisoning incident). Since he joined Dream Theater, he was supposed to be a metal-like singer on some tracks - it just didn't happen on I&W because the producer, David Prater, told him to "keep it clean"; otherwise, at least Pull Me Under and Under a Glass Moon would have been heavier than they are on the record. He didn't use to sing in a heavy way before (he was in a glam metal band before joining DT); however, he once said that he was able to sing this way even before being an official member of the group. I would say he's had 7 periods on DT: 1) 1991-1992: clean and high vocals, discovering the best way to sing on the band; 2) 1993-1998: clean and rasp vocals, high notes (sometimes really high on live presentations, but not in a healthy way); even after the vocal injury, he tried to the sing in a similar way he did before; 3) 1999-2003: his voice still sounds raspy, but his range declined; he didn't sing as high as before; 4) 2004-2006: no rasp, nasal vocals; 5) 2007-2010: a little rasp; nasal vocals on high pitches; 6) 2011-2012: cleaner vocals (on studio, not live); vocals not that nasal; 7) 2013-2017: really nasal vocals; the voice sounds flat; another perceptible decline of the range.

Very interesting analysis, kind of makes me want to hear James himself talk more about the changes he made to his singing technique over the years.

I’ve noticed for a lot of years he’s done that tour voice where everything’s even clean/no rasp and nasally, I always thought he did that to save his voice to last the tour regardless of how annoying it sounded at least he could pull the pitch off.. after the extended astonishing tour we all noticed a sharper decline for him, plus that was a tough album to sing for him night after night with all the tonal changes he had in it.. Let’s hope he got some much needed rest and new training to put on another great tour! I’ve seen them 10+ times since 2000 and he’s always been great Thanks for the break down, it’s nice to hear the terms

Without a doubt, James is my favorite male singer, one of my inspirations to start singing lessons, and DT has been one of my favorite bands since I was young. This is a great video, thank you Zach :) And omg, laughed so much at 19:41. Laser beam hehe.

What an amazing video! Thank you very much!

1992 LaBrie is probably my favourite vocalist ever. Current LaBrie sounds like an ambulance mixed with a screaming grandma Edit: i mean non-rasp in 1992

its nice how you explain this with much fairness. hes been bashed so much. (y)

I've seen DT two times live in Poland, 2014 and 2015 I believe, and I was disappointed with James' singing, but man I understand where that comes from! I have now broader understanding of his vocal case, and also back then they've had a ridiculously tough touring schedule, the day before show in Poland they played in Czech Republic. James didn't have enough time to rest, also spending hours in a van or any other means of communication with air-conditioning wrecks your voice immediately :/ I wish they switched to playing easier songs so that James could sing for couple years more and so that shows wouldn't be ear-rape anymore. He keeps doing an amazing job when he doesnt have to screech all those high notes, on The Astonishing he may not be flawless, but it's pleasing to the ear.

Hey I’m friends with James Vocal Coach btw his name is Jami Vendera and he’s been working with James the last couple of years

Excellent video, I think just one small thing is when you said that this was the beginning of the show, that wasn't the case. The Images and Words playthrough was the 2nd set of their show on this tour, he had already sung 6 songs that night by this point (admittedly ones from 2003-present so not exactly as demanding as the 90s stuff).

Great video, I am happy that I found it...

Another great video, Zach. I have been taught in a classical style but since watching your videos I've been taking special notice of glottal onsets. A lot of pop singers actually do try to manage this or have learnt themselves that it helps to reach a note (I assume this is why Anthony Kiedis, not a great singer in my opinion, puts an L sound before the word 'I' in many, many songs).

A couple of things.... (and yes, I was there back then) Dream Theater got a LOT of flack for sounding very 80s, and still do to this day. So I think they felt a lot of pressure to heavy things up. Two, I believe that James was adding rasp to his vocals to try to sound heavier and compete with singers like Chris Cornell and Layne Staley who were more popular at the time. I also believe that's why he abandoned a lot of the more correct technique that he exhibited in his singing on Images and Words.

I've never figured out James' new style of slow vibrato that sounds more like an emergency vehicle alarm. Like there's 2-4 "waves" vibrating per second and it just sounds very strange and forced. He, in my opinion, doesn't have very good breath support in neither of the videos. I don't hear that botne or power that would come from his diaphragm, but all I hear is singing from lungs and belting. He just happens to have such a distinctive and excellent tone, powerful output and range that masks his lack of breath support what his voice would truly need during the hard sections of the song. I don't hear him using his chest register much or at all and the lower register he does is mix with lots of bad habits, but I could be wrong on that. Also I think that James never learned a proper way to utilize his chest voice, where his voice could rest a bit while singing a bit lower, but he has gone for mix or head voice all the years of his career, which is after long-time and excessive fatigue created straining to his head voice. As you said, he has very frontal nasal resonance in his voice and it's been almost his whole career as his primary tool in his singing voice and he hasn't really changed registers or the resonance placement. Hell I've never so far heard him using falsetto, except maybe couple of occasions, which could've eased things a little. After injuries, aging and ton of touring, something will eventually break after all that nasal singing, if you don't let your voice chill out at a times during performance. Singing frontal nasal, at least for me as a baritone, is a temporary solution to sing high tenor register, but doing that all the time wouldn't be a long-shot solution and I don't sound so good in so high register or when belting the notes. Only occasions I've really needed it is when I sing the backing vocals on Bruno Mars' "Locked out of Heaven" chorus (Bb4 or A4 is the note there, I think) with my cover band and it really takes lots of energy from my voice to stay up there. So kudos for Labrie for doing something like that for many years and still attempting well to stay consistent with it.

Thanks for the objective analysis, without the emotions that most fans have for (or against) DT.

Great video! My only comment is that on the Images, Words, and Beyond tour, Pull Me Under is on the second set, so it is possible that he is vocally fatigued by that point~

Very objective and fair criticism. I too dislike how people pile up on James for things outside of his control, as if the people criticizing can do the same things they did physically when they were 20-30 years younger. Criticize all you want, but be fair and pick the correct examples and be constructive. If more people are like that, perhaps James himself will start taking that more to heart and do something about it instead of being defensive and dismissing it as people being assholes or ignoring it altogether. I'd also love to see a video on Tim Ripper Owens, as he does seem to produce similar raspy high screaming like James did in the early 90s.

I love the sound of metal vocals in some contexts. Meshuggah for example clearly wouldn't work without those vocals, also does Jen's from Meshuggah damage his vocal cords?

Would be interesting to see really unhealthy vocals analysed Try Axl Rose or James Hetfield (80s) Also tom araya would be amazing i dont know how he screams like that without hurting his voice or at least there is no noticable change in his sound

I only know that I've never learned this much about James LaBrie's singing style. I needed this video, so thank you. I've got invited to a TV show where amateur singers compete by imitating famous professionals. My singing style is not yet set, but Dream Theater is my favourite band if I can only name one. After all what you said I decided to learn both these styles and for imitation I do neither but both. One song is not a big deal, but I want to keep my voice. Coincidentally (after watching you other video about JLB) I chose to sing The Gift of Music for now. So singing The Astonishing full album can be considered enough practice for a day? :D There are a lot of instrumental parts though.

I love the detailed analysis and expertise! I would spend less time qualifying what your about to do in the intro, i tend to skip over it.

I know I'm late, just now discovered your channel, big DT fan here. I have heard all of their albums and demos, live albums and have big collection of live bootlegs so I have heard pretty much everything James ever did and how he sounded. What I wanted to say is, I agree with everything you said. Often, on forums, RU-vid and other online communities people hold James early years in DT in high regard. I do, too, don't get me wrong... but... I always thought his technique was absolutely terrible live. Just because he could it didn't mean he should have. He often sounded tired and had voice cracks. Yes, maybe he made it more interesting or improvised but often he just shouted words and blew his voice. To be honest, when improvising, he's much better now and his melodies are much more interesting. That said, I hope their new album (if they make it) will have him more around his comfortable range and let him do the melodies (if they don't, I don't think they do that much) because I still like his middle natural range.

I wish you would have started way back when youtube wasn't fucking over their own creators. Im sure you'd be doing this for a living if you did start back then 'cause you truly are unique, well spoken, fair and educated in your "critiques". As usual, another stellar vid.

Amazing video. U should hit James up. He could use you

Great analysis Zach! As always, I really enjoyed it. That said, I am still wondering what makes JLB be off pitch lots of times. I thought the old material being demanding and because of his age he has no necessary range anymore. That was until I saw him struggling with the most recent material like The Gift of Music from the Astonishing. What is the cause in your opinion?

I know he studied with Jaimie Vendeira at one point... could be one of the reasons.... Thank you so much anyway for all that precious information :-)

If we're going to continue analyzing the curious case of James LaBrie, I'd recommend checking him out in Ayreon as well. He sounds very different on the albums he's a part of there. Being a big fan of DT, I actually prefer his vocals when he sings on an Ayreon album.

great video! I've previously come to some of the same conclusions regarding James' technique myself after personally experiencing the effects of adding that rasp to my own vocals (though I clearly have a tiny fraction of the technical knowledge that you appear to). In fact, I aspired to sing like early 90's james back in the day. I did alright. That said, that rasp, in addition to doing death metal growls for a decade (though super inconsistently during that decade), I did damage to my voice. Its kind of weird because I can still sing clearly quite well, and that's without practicing regularly. I actually recorded a cover of spirit carries on recently in which I got pretty damn high. That said, I can't add a rasp to my voice now, even if I wanted to. I will break into a massive coughing fit the second I try. I used to do an impression of Otto from the simpsons, but I literally just can't do it now or I'll be coughing for a minute. I don't generally try to add a rasp to my voice, FYI. I stopped BECAUSE it is not good for you. that's also why I stopped doing death metal vocals. that shit will not do you favours, guarantee. sure, you may be able to do them and still sing decently (I do like me some Mikael Akerfelt), but you will almost certainly be able to sing better if you don't do them.

His best voice was between 1991 and 1994, with i&w and awake

Would love to hear your take on Rob Halford. I'm sure he's not the best singer in a technical aspect but he's still my favorite.

Can you do blind guardian?

Hey, this is a great video, but I did notice one thing you mentioned - Dream Theater weren't playing Pull Me Under at the beginning of the show. The way DT structured that tour, they had a first set of about 8 tracks, including The Dark Eternal Night (very shout-oriented track, vocal-wise), Breaking All Illusions, As I Am, and some other tracks. Sure, there was a 20 minute intermission between the first set and the Images and Words set, but I feel this justifies the fatigue a bit more.

Ive always felt its been his rigorous schedule. 3 hour shows with 200+ plus dates year after year. For saying what amount of power that has come out of his voice, he's doing great. Can't wait for the new album!

Isn't this the very DVD that contains an extra band commentary and James said himself he was exaggerating at the time? Thanks for the video, very interesting stuff

maybe pushing out the notes is the only way he can sing his parts now? so it would be a matter of pragmatism over aesthetisism?

This makes sense. I just came across their cover of the entire Master of Puppets album that they did as an encore at one of their shows in the early 2000's. Labrie just rode it too hard!

41:00 I really liked that sound. Didn't sound like falsetto to me, more of a chesty mix.

This was an absolutely fair anaysis and I agree. I don't think anyone could hold up any better with the length of their shows, though. His technique is far better now, but they needed to shorten their set length years ago and I think that's the main reason other than starting with poor technique. I know how old your video is but I do challenge anyone to sing an average DT set. No one would have an easy time, regardless.

To be fair, the song "pull me under" in this tour was not played at the start of the show. it was the first song in the second set of the night. in other words, he has been singing for probably more than an hour at the point of this song

Hearing James' 2017 vocals makes me glad I last saw them in 2007 (Portnoy fan too)

i don't even listen to DT why am i so concerned with labrie singing pull me under? help.

If there's one thing to take away from that Ravenskill channel, it's that it is a hilariously biased channel, which is weird to say because music is subjective at it's core, but taking all the worst examples of Labrie's stage moments is just laughably stupid. That channel does the same type of thing with Mangini vs Portnoy. This channel, is fair and analytic. It's completely fair to say that he's declined over the years. He is also a man in his mid 50s, whom after almost 30 years of practically non-stop recording and live performances is singing songs, up until a couple years ago in the same key, that he sang in his 20s, while rarely going into falsetto. That's just bravery and I got nothing but respect for that. This pandemic has been a, for lack of a better phrase, blessing in disguise (it's absolutely not a blessing, but again, lack of a better phrase) for him because at least now he is forced to take a break. At least, I hope he is. Knowing him, he's probably practicing right now.

Hey zach i was wondering if you could do a vocal analysis of Serj Tankian? I think there’s some really interesting stuff i want to hear from you

On December 29, 1994, while vacationing in Cuba, LaBrie was stricken with a severe case of food poisoning from contaminated shrimp and while vomiting, he ruptured his vocal cords. He saw three throat specialists who all said there was nothing they could do except have him rest his voice as much as possible. However, on January 12, 1995, against doctor's orders, he was on the Waking Up the World Tour in Japan promoting Dream Theater's Awake album with his voice far from normal.[19] LaBrie has said he did not feel vocally "normal" until at least 2002. He has also said that this era was a very hard time for him as a singer, and depression as a result caused him to consider departing from the band, although his bandmates supported him and urged him to stay. After the World Tourbulence tour, he discovered that his voice had fully returned. He said that his voice was fully healed by time and training.[19] However, while speaking to Greg Prato of Songfacts in 2019, LaBrie explained how the incident affected his vocal range. "So, instead of hitting D's and E's and F-sharps and all that stuff, I was able to hit C, C-sharp, and D. But I had to really watch it. I have hit F notes here and there, but I have to really watch it. But that was probably the darkest moment in my life, for sure."[20]

This video is now more relevant than ever. Since I've seen recent live clips, I'm concerned that by now, James has completely destroyed his voice. It's very sad, until now he still occasionally had a good night. Maybe that's why their last record sounds the way it does. Have you heard it? The overall sound is very good, except for the vocal production. The vocals are just overloaded with effects and they sound so damn artificial and distant (no pun intended). But maybe they just did it, because they had to.

Images & Words was going to raspier vocals originally, but producer David Prater obligated LaBrie not to do it (plus other horrific decisions such as using drum samples, Portnoy wasn't happy oc).

I think the song is completely outside of his range now, even with the down-tuning that they've done.

I think his vowel modifications are far too extreme and kinda really show his limitations as a singer. Of course vowel modifications happen when you sing but when LaBrie does them it's like a he uses a formula and exaggerates a lot. My vocal coach taught me how to use them much more subtle so that they do actually help for getting the right pitch easier but without sounding too extreme. LaBrie rather sounds like he uses a strict vowel formula and to me it doesn't sound right.

Left: A pro with maybe a few bad habits. Right: Drunken karaoke singer clearing out the bar.

i love labrie since AWAKE.....EVEN SOME OF THE SOLO ALBUMS ARE QUITE GOOD

You could send 1 singing tip James every Christmas :) Hope James skips all this bullshit about leaving.. I don`t stop loving my grandpa because of graspy voice

14:30 where you discuss rasp vs what you percieve to be a good sound. When he uses the rasp he has to initiate a whole lot more chest voice. If you listen to his sound and try to listen to his timbre beyond the rasp - if you catch my drift - you can hear that his tone is actually fuller and more resonant and the lyrics are clearer. He should absolutely NOT sing with this rasp, but further develop his chestier sound without it. When he later has what you describe as a clearer better sound he is singing in head voice, with an almost total lack of support. The sound is unstable and not connected. Almost flimsy in a way, especially when he sings near his pasagio. It sounds good because he is a great talent, he`s young and he's high up in his register, but James's big detrament is exactly this. He almost always sings in pure head voice and if you want to have a healthy, supported voice as a male singer you have to have a developed chest voice unified with the head voice. Dio is a great example of this and so is Rob Rock. Pure head voice leads to an enourmous strain on the vocal folds over time and also makes it really hard to sing in your passagio, middle and lower register and is impossible to support well. You can hear how his middle and low voice has suffered if you listen to recent tapes of him, where he struggles to sing the first part of spirit carries on. Also when one sings in head voice like james is, the highest parts of your voice often become the easiest to sing and therefore can feel "good" and "right", but it will also make your vowel REALLY sloppy, because you can`t shape them well. This can be heard in pull me under in how he "flips" when he sings the high parts and his vowel become spread and "weird". In the clip from pull me under you can hear him "Switch" from good vocals when he is rasping and when he soars upwards in pure head the vowels become spread, KEEP in mind that his rasp is NOT good, but the engagement of more chest voice is. Im not saying that his chest engagement is perfect in any way, just saying that he should`ve further developed this in the 90s and through that developed a more stable middle voice and passagio which would also make his high register better in terms of support, vowels and control. You can hear this even better in his later clips, it makes it almost impossible to hear what he`s actually singing. As a comparison you can listen to Dio and hear how every word is as clear as day even though he is also singing in really high tenor tessitura. I do totally agree with you that Jame`s rasp is unhealthy, he is not doing it right and this was probably something that caused him a lot of vocal damage. You CAN however sing with a rasp/growl and so on and do it safe. But this takes years of training and even then you have to be careful everytime you use it. Listen to Dio for an example of a master singer with a total control over his rasp/growl. Great video! this isn`t meant as a critique of you in any way, just my two cents :)

Please do Aerosmith - Amazing

What so you think of Ken Tamplin and similar who have "Healthy" Techniques for using glottal Compression? Also what about Melissa Cross and the zen of Screaming? "Healthy" Scream Techniques?

Please do Russell Allen from Symphony X! He's arguably singing his best now and many people are using him as an example of a prog rock Singer who got better with time!

Why not just sing the problematic lines in Pull Me Under (and other songs) an octave lower?

Didn’t he have a throat issue early on?

have you done scott stapp? i know he did cortisone injections and other painkillers after a car wreck i believe. Plus he sang when drunk which as you know isnt good for the voice. He was actually good during my own prison late 90s era, alho im sure you wont like the rasps haha

My favourite DT vocal is Wither, thats a clean, melodic vocal part and it matches La Bries voice exactly. When he tries to sing live nowadays though he just sounds tired and worn out

Pull me under live 1992 not live 1993!!!

Would be awesome if you did an episode on Jeff Buckley!

Rasp can be used if mastered correctly. You can allow your voice to lean into that sound. Jumping right into the sound (like James did) is absolutely awful for his voice. That combined with the food poisoning killed his singing.

Your final point at the end is incredibly poignant. James is clearly a talented guy, but he's clearly been pulled into so many conflicting directions over his career that its hard to make heads or tails of where he's coming from now. Combine that with the inevitable complications from aging and various life events and you get a recipe for disaster. But at the end of the day, as you say, kudos to him for grinding it out over the years despite it all.

Pull him under, pull him under, pull him under, he's not afraid!!! Kudos indeed!

I would love to see you do a vid on Geoff Tate. I know about all the controversy that surrounds him nowadays but that shouldn't matter. It's all hearsay anyway. Even before all that a lot of people were complaining that he''d "lost his voice" or was "washed up" all because he can no longer belt out those fifth octave monster notes but I tend to disagree and believe there's more to a voice than range. I've seen crowd shots of him performing the 1994 Promised Land track "Someone Else?" as recent as this year and he's seemed to do a fine job to my ears. Also there's this (a little older but still mature Geoff): ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DKhghSEHB2w.html You'll notice, at the octave change, he takes a couple of large strides away from the mic (good mic technique is to move distance yourself from a mic during powerful passages to avoiding distorting/overpowering it) and belts with such power that he still carries perfectly. I'm no vocal professional (just an amateur musician who can barely carry a tune singing-wise) but that, to me, demonstrates the difference between a good voice and a great voice. Would love to hear from someone who knows what they're talking about more.

Most of the time for James Labrie, after all he's been through and especially your statement that I agree with about his vocal coaching; that he may be confused or at the least was confused for a while on how to use or preserve his voice. Of course the incident that gave his voice complications and maybe the requirements or demands on a everyday performance could be the issue. But you must know that James is always the person that when he performs, he has many techniques slash routines / requirements like any other musician. At the beginning of a show, after warm-ups, supplements / hot tea drinks and normal pre-performance practice, and after the show has started and you talk about his performance through songs in the beginning, James always sticks to what he is supposed to sing and knows he has to put a twist or give a different accent being a live show and not listening to recorded album. most importantly, early in the show when you hear James and definitely at this age, sing notes or melodies way different and take notes that you would expect to be high a completely different route and bust on it and your opinion is because he is testing his voice and warming it up even during the show to give you his voice at the end.. that is because he's the only singer that gets better as The show goes on and doesn't fall out at the very end. He is his best at the end at least most of the time in all the times I've seen. I have heard many bands get better at singing when you're talking about a show that lasts 75 minutes but we are talking about a 3-hour show and someone gets better at the very end and doesn't fall out and plays four to five nights a week. That's just unheard of. That is why he is special in so many ways and it is crazy that I can understand why many people who can hate his voice or give him a bunch of crap about it but check Cameo because he's literally singing live every other day. I always guess that he's trying to prove that his voice is so great and he can still hit the same notes but at the same time he could just be doing his job because of covid not allowing him to tour. Love this guy he's awesome. Who hates a Canadian anyway. LOL

I think a doctor told him to Stop!!

It seems like such a waste to sing clean sections with a rasp, like with pull me under. If you're going to use rasp use it for the cool sounding fast songs or for the more intense parts of songs.

I prefer baritone singing. I don't understand why so many male singers are obsessed with showing off their higher range.

Please look at King Diamond. At 64 years old King is still doing things which his voice that is crazy. I understand falsetto is eaiser to hold than full voice. But just look at his latest tour and remember he is 64... It's unreal

What i don't like from current LaBrie, compared to his 1991-1993's peak version, are, like you said his far less pleasing tone, overuse of vibrato and enunciation, his lines are mushy...

The rasp: James has never been a 'badass' singer, but he was urged from early on to try to be one. That's ended in recent years for obvious personnel-related reasons.

As bad as the rasp is for his voice I absolutely loved it. I loved it without it too tho. Nowadays going to see them I’m mainly going for the instrumental aspect. Either way. Love James.

The rasp is atmospheric magik.

The tone is definitely the worst part of James' voice right now, the fact that it used to be so vibrant and resonant (one of the most vibrant and resonant voices of its genre) and it's now so nasely and narrow is what makes it worse.

I heard that James died in 2007 and was replaced with a zombie, is that true?

I think it a "monitor" issue, I think he has a hard time hearing himself

I was just thinking James over 50 years old cant unleash his power to sing pull me under anymore

Well doe on the 500!

I would have to disagree with your general conclusion that all forms of rasp are “bad.” I feel that there are heathy and non-healthy ways to create distortion with your vocal folds. That also includes knowing when to use it and when it is excessive to the point that it is damaging. Like an athlete that has to take care of his/her joints... irresponsible habits make dirty vocals dangerous, rather than the technique itself.

I wouldn't say that Labrie's voice is a total wreck. At the same time, he is not to be blamed entirely for his vocal decline because the band had their shortcomings when it comes to taking care of their singer. However even in this present time, Labrie has some bad habits to straighten up if he wants to bring out an okay performance. Just look at the 2015 Live at Wacken show. On that show, Labrie still has that strength in him to sing the songs of that set in their original pitch, however instead of making it easy for him, Labrie decides to make it complicated for him by doing ad-libs (adding high notes coupled with that ugly vibrato and extending vowels on many parts) that are way off which puts strain on him at the same time, butchers the song (perfect example: Afterlife, The Spirit Carries On).

You're not gonna confirm my bias here

Ok but what about goose vocals??