Which post-Awake Dream Theater album has the best vocals? (2014 edition)

[Invisible]

If the mods consider two threads like this inappropriate, feel free to lock it, but I think it's a different spin the question since the two obvious choices(I&W, Awake) are left out.

[Jaffa]

Tough call for me.  With the obvious choices gone, nothing stands out as a clear favorite.  I'll have to give it some thought. 

[Rodni Demental]

I voted Black Clouds because I like James' melodies and I also think this album has the best sounding MP and JPs harmonies. Even though I picked ADTOE last time and that ADTOE and DT12 are more accessible, better production and are likely to appeal to a larger audience, I just think BL&SC will end up being vastly underrepresented. I predict DT12 might win though with the absence of I&W and Awake.

[BlobVanDam]

I'll go with Six Degrees. I think he has a great emotional range on that album, and his vocals blend perfectly with every style on the album, from the growlier heavy vocals, the soaring melodic vocals, to the softer ballad vocals.

As Jaffa pointed out, there isn't as obvious a favourite, but SDOIT stands a bit above the rest for me.

[darkshade]

8vm

[adastra]

I'd have to say Octavarium. Great album , great vocals

[Bertielee]

FII

[?]

ADTOE

[TheGreatPretender]

I would definitely say Systematic Chaos. JLB does so many awesome and different things with his voice on that album, and at the same time, it's not lacking in his classic style, as well as high parts.

[Accelerando]

I'll go with Six Degrees. I think he has a great emotional range on that album, and his vocals blend perfectly with every style on the album, from the growlier heavy vocals, the soaring melodic vocals, to the softer ballad vocals.

As Jaffa pointed out, there isn't as obvious a favourite, but SDOIT stands a bit above the rest for me.

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[KevShmev]

Scenes from a Memory, by far.  I remember being floored by how great his vocals sounded when I first got the CD (some of that of course was helped by the great vocal melodies), and I can't say that about any other Dream Theater CD since.  Don't get me wrong, his vocals are always really good in the studio (although he struggled at times on SC, IMO), but he really hit it out of the park on Scenes.

[Sycsa]

As many pointed out before, James is great on every studio album. I was inclined to go with SFAM as well, but the "Mothers for their children" section of IT took me entirely off guard and sucker punched me so hard that I went with DT12 in the end. I did not expect James to pull off something like that this late in their career. The third place would go to either SDOIT or FII, with Peruvian Skies, Trial of Tears, Blind Faith and TGP standing out the most. ACOS should be up there as well, I love James' more restrained and tasteful approach compared to the over-the-top earlier versions. Train of Thought is probably his weakest performance, his voice sounded thin there and the 50th chorus of ITNOG gets on my nerves like nothing else he ever sang.

[Sacul]

I'll go with Six Degrees. I think he has a great emotional range on that album, and his vocals blend perfectly with every style on the album, from the growlier heavy vocals, the soaring melodic vocals, to the softer ballad vocals.

As Jaffa pointed out, there isn't as obvious a favourite, but SDOIT stands a bit above the rest for me.

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[son_ov_hades]

Scenes from a Memory, by far.  I remember being floored by how great his vocals sounded when I first got the CD (some of that of course was helped by the great vocal melodies), and I can't say that about any other Dream Theater CD since.  Don't get me wrong, his vocals are always really good in the studio (although he struggled at times on SC, IMO), but he really hit it out of the park on Scenes.

This, absolutely this. After Images And Words and Awake, Scenes From A Memory is the obvious choice.

[mikeyd23]

SDOIT... SFAM is a close second.

[Dreamer]

Thanks for this, I bumped the old thread so can now vote for DT12 

[jakepriest]

Octavarium.

[Shadow2222]

James sounds great on Octavarium. They sound like they have a strange effect on them (not autotune, but something similar) that makes them sound so much different than on any other DT album. Whatever it is, it sounds great.

He does sound good on DT12, but there are weak spots ("Know that you're alive... You'll NEVER know.... Know-ooh-oh-ooh-oh, ohhhooohohhhh").

[Dublagent66]

SDOIT... SFAM is a close second.

[jakepriest]

No love for TOT so far? 

[Dark Castle]

To quote Sockweb: "You stink you smell like dog poop"


Being serious though, ToT was the weakest performance from the entire band by far from my point of view. My friend has tried to show me it from time to time, see if my opinion's changed, but it really hasn't.

I'd say DT12 for my vote. James pulls a lot of effort out and emotion that was fantastic.

[TAC]

I'm going with Scenes but:

I would definitely say Systematic Chaos. JLB does so many awesome and different things with his voice on that album, and at the same time, it's not lacking in his classic style, as well as high parts.

James is flawless on SC. Sneaky great.

[RoeDent]

Considering it's not mentioned a lot among the replies, I was surprised to see DT12 in the lead on this poll.

Voted ADTOE.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

SC

[PixelDream]

Six Degrees followed by Scenes and SC (mainly on ITPOE).

[Nearmyth]

So many good choices. TOT is really the only album where James never really stood out vocally... But I went with SDOIT. I think he was able to capture the widest variety of emotions, and convey the most atmosphere and sense of theme with his voice in that album - especially on the title track.

I think James does a particularly good job of conveying an array of emotion in all of their studio albums, but SDOIT probably most so, probably followed by DT or SFAM. Though I particularly like his vocal work in ADTOE and SC Like I said so many choices!

[Daso]

Where is WDaDU?

Given the obvious choices are gone, it's quite hard to pick. FII has great vocal melodies that absolutely rock live, but I've always thought the vocal production is too layered and processed on the album. SFaM has a lot of variety and it's, at least for me, the album that separates classic JLB to present JLB. SDOIT features the most different kind of singing, if you will. I mean, Misunderstood, WIMH/TTTSTA, GK, BF and Disappear sound nothing alike, and it's still the same singer, and there's great stuff on it as well (Solitary Shell comes to mind easily). I don't dig the singing on ToT, but it has one of my favorite vocal passages on DT, the "over the distance" part of ES. Octavarium has the title track, which by itself gives the album a shitload of points vocally. SC and BC&SL are quite alike, there's some cool stuff, but most of them are not remarkable, and ADTOE/DT12 are not that varied but both have incredible moments, for one, when I entered this thread the first thing that came to mind was BAI's chorus and IT.

I could narrow it down to SFaM, SDOIT, 8VM, ADTOE and DT12, but it's still 5 albums  I'll give them a listen and then vote.

[RoeDent]

Where is WDaDU?

Look at the title. "post-Awake."

[Sacul]

He does sound good on DT12, but there are weak spots ("Know that you're alive... You'll NEVER know.... Know-ooh-oh-ooh-oh, ohhhooohohhhh").

That section on IT is no way a weak spot, I think it's one of the best moments DT has made in recent years.

[Rodni Demental]

Not to upset anyone (my vote wasn't exactly something that people have agreed with and I certainly can't sing as well as James so what would I know). Just a few examples for each album or it'll turn into an entire analysis of James' vocal styles.

But these are the albums I'd instantly disqualified when I was thinking about them. It doesn't mean they don't have great moments, but the bad moments become quite obvious: Falling Into Infinity, pretty much the high pitches don't work, and the harmonies are piercing (a few piercing harmonies on Scenes From a Memory as well actually but nothing too glaring). Eg. "Hidden by disguise/Feeling uninspired" section in Trial of Tears (I think he's been doing this part a lot more justice in the current version they're playing on this tour), You Not Me's chorus..., "Drawing lines in the saaaaaaaand" (Doug Pinnick doesn't help either, he can clearly sing but James and Doug don't seem to harmonise with each other very well, I can't tell if it's from one of them being flat or both of their 'harsh' tones clashing on some level). "Buuurning my soul" is a bit piercing, and the repetition of the line kinda ruins what could have been a catchy song. "I swear he's gonna murder that poor kid", not high, but weeeird.

"Manufactured anger!" "light at the end of a tunnel is another train", these to lines I actually really like the passages they're from but the vocals didn't make any sense the first time, kinda like "They took pictures of our dreams" from Another Day, and "Once lost but I was found/When I heard the stained glass shatter all around me" from Surrounded. They're good sections but if I didn't have a lyric book, by god I'd have no idea what he was saying. I think Awake might have even more moments like this (fuck this whore, drink a troll/Captain Sex" from Voices xD) but the expression and style of his voice on that Album more than makes up for lack of understanding certain passages.

A Change of Seasons is great, but The Crimson Sunset is pretty much where it goes to hell on the vocals, even the "I'm sick of all you hypocrites" part isn't as brutal as "Seize the day" outro and even now I think I just learnt something new "I realize, There's no turning back, Life goes on, The offbeaten track". I thought 'I realise' said 'open your eyes'.

Train of Thought.. lol

Six Degrees.. I think The Glass Prison's probably the main culprit for piercing highs, "We've been waiting for you my friend The writing's been on the wall" very yelpy, it doesn't help that the lyrics change later during the repeat making it even harder to figure out what he's saying, and the Chorus.. Blind Faith Chorus and Great Debate Chorus, the highs took a while to settle but I can tolerate those now. Although this album has hugely grown on me so I think I've forgotten a lot of the iffy moments I had on my first impressions. 

Systematic Chaos: Foooorsaaken! Yeah.. It's catchy as all hell but it's rough imo .

That leaves Octavarium, Black Clouds, Dramatic Turn and Dream Theater as the only albums that don't have these weird moments for me. (I probably would have to disqualify WDADU/I&W/Awake for their incomprehensible highs aswell even if they're well sung). For the record, an example of James' highs done RIGHT: is The Root of All Evil - "Driven blindly by our sins, misled so easily, entirely ready to leave it behind, I'm begging to break free". Stunning in studio, didn't come off as powerful on Luna Park or Score though. And Obviously Illumination Theory final section. It's possible BC&SL/ADTOE only made it this far because they play it safe, but the result is quite satisfactory so it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Anyway, these are normally thoughts that I'd keep to myself but seeing as we're talking about vocals of all albums, I just thought I'd share my early impressions. James LaBrie is actually one of my favourite vocalists for range and versatility, I think it just takes some adjusting when you've been surrounded by so much fake singing and auto tune in modern music that it ruins peoples appreciation for real singers like James LaBrie, Myles Kennedy.. Dare I say, Geddy Lee?

[54_diplomats]

Scenes from a Memory. James sounds amazing on here, a lot of emotion in his voice.

[Volante99]

ADToE

Labrie's performance here is just like the album itself: Solid all the way around and only getting better with age. He does such a nice job with Far From Heaven.

SDOIT would probably be a close second.

I thought SFAM is his weakest. While it probably has the best melodies, Labrie is nasally on the softer/mid range parts and straining on the high parts. Regression is just plain bad and hard for me to listen to actually.

[Rodni Demental]

I just thought of something, Build Me Up Break Me Down on ADTOE isn't exactly 'playing it safe', it's got arguably the highest notes JLB has ever pulled off, even if it's the kinda technique that is 'studio only'.

[CharlesPL]

DT 12.

[ThatOneGuy2112]

Scenes from a Memory, by far.  I remember being floored by how great his vocals sounded when I first got the CD (some of that of course was helped by the great vocal melodies), and I can't say that about any other Dream Theater CD since.  Don't get me wrong, his vocals are always really good in the studio (although he struggled at times on SC, IMO), but he really hit it out of the park on Scenes.

100% this. I&W might be my favorite overall performance but Scenes is a close second. It always stuns me how emotional he sounds in a lot of the songs.