Reviews > 30 Seconds To Mars
30 Seconds To Mars Still Gets Those Underage Juices Flowing
By Johnny Firecloud
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
30 Seconds To Mars have returned with This Is War, an album they spent two years crafting amidst a lion’s share of personal and professional turmoil, which included getting sued by their label Virgin Records – for $30 million. A number like that is bound to make any band take stock of what the hell they’re all about, hunker down, band together and make the definitive album of their careers. Or so you’d think.
Jared Leto’s really putting his heart on the line on This Is War, but to anyone but teenage girls and Muse fans still spinning in the ether of their most recent orchestral kaleidoscope, this is all going to seem a bit forced. It sounds precisely like what it is: an album with two years’ worth of tinkering and obsessively second-guessing, reaching for the highest heights and most epic peaks imaginable. It’s massive, it’s grand, it’s a sweeping, slick and pretty production, but that doesn’t mean it’s very good.
You can’t blame a band for trying to reach into the future, for pushing their sound to a place that they think music – or at least their music – should go. But the tech-blippery and space-age overtones have precisely the same impact that Muse’s similar attempts have had; they’re cheesy and make the songs much less believable than if they were to stand on their own without some frenzied ultracolor struggle for salvation, love, purity or whatever the fuck Jordan Catalano is screaming about now.
After a slow-build opening with epic aspirations, whispery melodrama takes over on Escape and the idea that This Is Really Going Somewhere careens into a wall of empty revolution that gives way to, Night Of The Hunter, a promising new-age rock anthem with eager desperation. It sets the tone that remains for much of the album, one of a post-emo pseudoauthentic yearning and call to arms for… why for love, of course.
During the recording of the disc, Leto and the band invited fans, members of what the frontman calls “The Summit,” to contribute gang vocals which appear throughout the entire record. They’re found most heavily in Vox Populi, which opens like a futuristic blip-strobe and features massive stomp-clap chants that seem truly inspiring without Leto’s verses. In 100 Suns, the bleeding romance of hushed lines like “I believe in nothing / but the beating of our hearts” is bound to leave mascara streaks on teenage cheeks, and exits to the sound of screamy cheers from The Summit.
Hurricane is likely the best track on the record, like the soundtrack to a sorrowful, soul-searching sports car night drive in Miami. It’s a slick dose of future-electro rock, like the rest of the album, and Kanye’s appearance is a clever one (because, see, both entities appear to have hit an overwrought emotional stage in their careers). But any case of impression ends with a falcon call at the onset of Kings And Queens, which lulls you with sparse piano-in-the-crickets effects before blasting you with four hundred pounds per square inch of molten, stinking cheese. “Into the night / desperate and broken / the sound of a fight / father has spoken,” Leto whispers with earnest, before letting loose with the screaming again.
To his credit, Jared Leto can scream his ass off. The melodrama and showmanship makes him utterly impossible to take seriously, but the guy can wail as if his 16 year-old heart is breaking open, the first time it’s ever happened to anybody apparently. You can feel how badly he wants his colors to shine more brightly than anybody else’s, how much he wants his vision of Love Rebellion to be the ultimate perception, the new game plan.
The production is heavy-handed and fantastic, and the album certainly does feel as if the band has put their heart and soul into it. But that doesn’t mean the mix of ingredients is exactly thrilling.
Unfortunately, ringleader Leto doesn’t look like he’s ever going to get over his little messiah complex. His teenage poetry is riddled with an angst he should’ve outgrown over a decade ago, and all the singing lessons and expensive toys in the world aren’t going to change that.
- 01. Escape
- 02. Night Of The Hunter
- 03. Kings And Queens
- 04. This Is War
- 05. 100 Suns
- 06. Hurricane
- 07. Closer To The Edge
- 08. Vox Populi
- 09. Search And Destroy
- 10. Alibi
- 11. Stranger In A Strange Land
- 12. L490
what a bunch of fags.
I feel like a total teenager, but I must admit I do not hate this album so far. Prefer it to Beautiful Lie, anyway.
That Kanye song has to be the WORST on this album.
Do people seriously still care about this band?
Nice cover, though. Leto is better as a junkie (in the movies, you know).
yeah, that’s it, in the movies………………
I can see the Hot Topic shirts now:
Leggo my Leto
I couldn’t even decipher what “the war” is that he was talking about. All I kept hearing is “This Is War” and “A Call to arms” and “Battle Song”. It’s about as effective as pointing your finger at someone and saying “Bang”.
It sounds like he walked into the studio and said “Epic, yeah. War is epic. Let’s record that.”
I know that you wrote this over a year ago, but I figured I might as well reply seeing as this is one of the most ignorant comments I have ever heard.
First of all, why would he have to name a war? Aren’t there enough wars going on in the world today? And “the war in Afghanistan sucks ass” doesn’t exactly make for good lyrics.
It’s supposed to have double meaning. First of all, there are so many wars going on today that he’s trying to call for peace. But also, he’s asking people to fight their personal battles, to get it over with so that there can finally be both physical and emotional peace. The album isn’t about being epic.
Music is never about being epic, it’s about feeling and getting a message out.
The song This is War specifically talks about ending the reign of abusive power. It says things like “To the leader, the pariah, the victim, the messiah.” It is talking about ending the oppression of people in our world.
However, with the lyrics such as this:
I believe in nothing not the end and not the start
I believe in nothing not the earth and not the stars
I believe in nothing not the day or not the dark
I believe in nothing not but the beating of our hearts
I believe in nothing not 100 suns until we part
I believe in nothing not not in sin and not in God
I believe in nothing not not in peace and not in war
I believe in nothing not but the truth in who we are
He is talking about how you cannot believe in anything until you believe in yourself.
So, I would argue that it is definitely more effective that saying “Bang”.
why is this record even being acknowledged? these guys are clearly not targeting music fans
i was originally going to review it, but decided a) it would be hell even thinking about it, let alone listening to it, for that long, and b) i’d probably just talk shit on jared leto (i’ve got stories) the whole time, and as much as i hate him, that just wouldn’t be fair. then johnny reviewed it for the other site he writes for. for money. and we decided to publish it because of something about being all-inclusive or something. but hey, in the morning, sade will be front and center, and all will be right in the world.
..and that bitch never ages.
I heard part of the cd. It’s not bad. Not amazing, but I mean,give jared leto some credit, most actors doing the music thing completely suck and his band is middle line. Better than alot of the shit out there, not quiet up there with the greats though. Decent for a few listens. Still I’d rather he stuck to making good movies. But I guess he’s an “artist”
“The melodrama and showmanship makes him utterly impossible to take seriously,…”
Yes.
The dude on the right looks like Adam Lambert and I think that says more than enough.
Jared Leto is a hipster faggot.
Why is it that the dudes that teenage girls lust after always look like chicks? Trust me, I was one. Duran Duran…’nuff said.
i disagree with every 1. i think the album is definitly good. i prefer a beautiful lie but i think every one is judging them too hard. i think the album is great so fuck every 1 who cares enough to post bad shit about them
it’s like the harder we trash a band, the disagreeing comments are more poorly written. i can only imagine these poor souls struggling to complete their thoughts, hands twitching wildly as they suppress the raging convulsions. we should put a warning somewhere.
I like you Skwerl, but you’re kinda a douchebag. The album is pretty shit though
Glad I Downloaded lol.Not like i Buy many cds nowadays cant stand spending coin on fagarse musos
That was some delicious snark, Skwerl.
Why is it that every time that I look at this photo I find something else disturbing about it and this vanity project? Fingerless gloves? Seriously? And Leto has a better manicure than I do.
I liked their first album. I liked the space rock there were going for. I didn’t care for Jared’s pseudo-rock star posturing. Their second album sucked ass. I will give this one a shot, hopefully there will be a few songs I like but as a band I don’t really care for them. I hate emo lyrics and Jared seems to revel in that.
i spent about 2 minutes listening and now feel like a dog that just got its nose rubbed in poo. i’ve learned my lesson.
if a famous actor wasn’t in this band they’d be playing in an Veterans lodge somewhere in Ohio this very minute and no one would give a flying monkey fuck.
30stm (album) > a beatiful lie & this is war
IDK about you guys but there first album was way better then anything they had ever made since. Beautiful lie was ok but this latest one is pathetic. They need to back to the days of capricorn or else fall of the face of the planet and disapoint everyone.
As much as I enjoy seeing how well you guys rip bands a new asshole, and in spite of how well the review is written, I have to disagree. The angsty teenage lyrics weigh the album down at times, but on a whole the production and artistic value of the album’s collective symphony display a more mature sound than most of 30’s contemporaries. You have to respect Leto’s vocal skills(screaming or not), and they’re really put on display here in a way that far surpasses previous albums. What has to be understood here is that the focal point of the album isn’t the lyrics, isn’t even the pristine vocals, it’s about the music itself.