Review Summary: "Love Lust Faith + Dreams" contains some of the band's best work to date, and is very much worth your money.
With a new 30 Seconds To Mars album usually comes a new sound. Old fans will most likely hate it, while others will love it. While "Love Lust Faith + Dreams" has it's shortcomings, but maintains an enjoyable sound throughout. Comparing this to the debut is why many people despise this album, if you're one of those people....get over yourselves. It's called the music industry. Bands change, and if you look at this album as it is, it is a great piece of work.
I'm not going to lie and say the singles were great, because they weren't. In fact the three choices were the worst the album had to offer. "Up In The Air" actually being the most successful single, is also clearly the best out of the three. Due to it's lyrics and versatility in the verses, however the chorus does suffer. As well as the overpowering instrumental. "Conquistador" is brought down from a terribly watered down guitar riff and chorus, however the sound is catchy. "The Race" also suffers from doing nothing exciting, and has one of the worst choruses on the album that clocks in at about 15 seconds.
While the singles suffer, and feel as if something is missing, the rest of the album is incredible. There seems to be much more focus on instrumental quality, in songs like "Pyres of Varanasi". Lyrics feel much more polished and inspired. Prime example for lyrical quality is "End of All Days". The quality of this song is impeccable. Jared has an undying passion throughout the whole song, backed up by a nice piano ballad, and a solid beat. It stands as some of the band's best work to date. The album is also much more stripped down and organic. No more stadium sized groups of people providing back-up vocals. Now only about 20-25 people are doing so, and it is not so overused as it was in "This Is War". "City Of Angels" is also a very strong number, clocking in at a decent length of 5:02. The longest song on the album. The song is very remniscent of U2, maybe because of Steve Lillywhite producing the album.
One thing the album has throughout is a pure, organic sound. Best examples are the two songs I just mentioned. While the singles feel very uninspired, I would highly recommend picking up this one.
TBT (For the lazy ones):
Birth: 3.8/5
Conquistador: 2/5
Up In The Air: 3/5
City Of Angels: 4.7/5
The Race: 2.5/5
End Of All Days: 5/5
Pyres Of Varanasi: 4.1/5
Bright Lights: 4/5
Do Or Die: 3.8/5
Convergence: 3.3/5
Northern Lights: 4.2/5
Depuis Le Debut: 4/5
Average: 3.7
