i'm just keeping my fingers crossed that JLB has been working on training his voice in the meantime . there's going to be an even bigger focus on their shows for a while than before. Also the whole world is getting their MP drumvideo fixes again, also bringing in new fans. Plus there will be some video's for his new DT kit he's doing with Tama and something he teased with MD as well..
DT is gaining big momentum with MP back on the promotion side already
I wouldn't count on it...
We obviously don't know for a fact what JLB has been up to lately, but that same phrase appears every time in between tours/albums and then nothing ends up getting better on that regard. I remember there was some talk about how the lockdowns were going to benefit James' voice because there were no tour dates and he could get well rested. Well, then the A View/Dreamsonic tours happened and we all know how that went in the vocal department.
Not to sidetrack the discussion from JM too much, but as someone who knows absolutely nothing about singing, I do find it interesting how we all just assume (myself included) that vocalists can magically improve or fix their problems with "training", like it's a Dragon Ball Z episode.
While there is absolutely a fitness/maintenance/practice component to being a great vocalist, I think there are also probably mitigating factors that are hard or even impossible to overcome. For example, it's possible that the food poisoning incident plus years of singing on tour have wrecked James's voice beyond repair. It's also possible that James is training as hard as he can, but has some kind of health issue we don't know about or something that puts a ceiling on what he can or can't do.
At this point, I think that the best we can hope for is that [1] if James hasn't been taking his vocal maintenance seriously, that MP's return gives him the inspiration he needs to begin doing so, or [2] if James has been doing all he can (which is what I'm inclined to believe unless I see a compelling reason otherwise), that the band make some very conscious choices around their setlist to enable him to be as successful as possible (downtune certain songs, remove some songs entirely, or even rewrite certain vocal melodies entirely).