Alternate rock quartet 30 Seconds to Mars released their second album this year, which is titled
A Beautiful Lie. I don’t own their first album, but I hear it is heavier than this record. Meaning that I would probably prefer their debut over this, but
]A Beautiful Lie is still a good record. 30 Seconds to Mars is probably more famous for the fact that actor Jared Leto is the frontman (vox, guitar) of the group, but I’m not going to make a deal out of this. His brother Shannon is the drummer in the band, Tomo Milicevic plays the guitar, and Matt Wachter is the bassist.
The first five tracks are all just completely fantastic.
Attack makes an amazing single for itself with some nice synthesizers and most of the song feels like one huge chorus.
A Beautiful Lie would also make for a great single as well. Jared Leto’s voice shines through on this song. It’s an awesome song to see the band open up their set live.
The Kill has some great piano on it in the background that fits perfectly with Jared Leto’s singing The chorus is most likely the best part of the whole album when he sings
“Come break me down. Bury me, bury me, I am finished with you. Look at my eyes, your killing me, killing me.”.
The Kill is without a doubt the vocal highlight of the album. If
The Kill is the vocal highlight then
Was it a Dream? is the musical highlight. A nice drum beat opens the song after a crash of thunder is heard followed by a guitar with some very nice and soothing effects to it that sets a mystical mood for the song. The guitar and drums keep the same pace for most of the song, but makes for an incredibly mellow tune. Jared’s voice is good, but doesn’t match up to the previous four songs. As soon as it began, it ends with the clap of thunder.
With
The Fantasy, I think that Jared was attempting to write an epic feeling ballad and he succeeds somewhat. The only problem is that a feeling of repetitiveness starts to sink in, which is the problem for the rest of the album. While the first half of the record is seemingly superb, the other half is another story. I start to feel as if I have already heard all of these songs. The songs
Savior,
From Yesterday,
The Story, and
R-Evolve all feel like renditions of either
Was it a Dream? or*
The Fantasy, except with an uninspired feeling. Jared’s voice also starts to become weak right after the first half of the album is over. The last track,
A Modern Myth, is generally the same except with the inclusion of strings, which doesn’t really do much for me.**
You think it’s over when it’s really not.
Turns out there* are two hidden songs to go along with the record. One is an original song while the other is a cover. The first is the original and is titled,
Battle of One. On this Jared’s singing and the techno like drumming give this song a jungle feel. It is rather short coming in at 2:46, but is the heaviest song on the album alongside
Attack. The cover song is from Bjork and is called
Hunter. I’d never been interested to much in the band so I have never heard this song before, but I can tell you that 30 Seconds To Mars really make this song seem as their own with some fantastic singing from Jared that is more like the first half of
A Beautiful Lie.**
When all is said and done, the first five tracks are wonderful, while the other half is just average or poor. Jared shows great promise as a singer and his writing ability shows an equal amount of promise. This is in short, a really good alternate rock album, but at times, tedious. All in all this record is a mixed bag, but is still enjoyable. 3 out of 5.
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