Artist: 30 Seconds to Mars
Album: This is War
Genre: Rock
Label: EMI/Virgin

Given the success of A Beautiful Lie, it’s no wonder Jared Leto’s band, 30 Seconds to Mars, took four years to record a follow-up. Their monstrous hit, “The Kill” shattered radio airplay records and the band sold out shows all over the world [not to mention making some of the most epic music videos of modern times] before heading back to California to record what eventually became their third record, This is War. Boasting an even larger sound than the previous record[s], this one is definitely something to sonically experience, but I’m still not sold on the act as a whole.

Starting with the call to arms/remembrance piece, “Kings and Queens,” Leto and his bandmates waste no time inflating their sound to be as grandiose as possible with a self-recorded hawk cry leading into their all-too-familiar swirl of sounds before exploding into a hurricane of sound and “woah-ohs.” Leto is up to the same tricks with his near whisper like croon that easily crescendos into nearly over-reverbed choruses that seem to be produced to give the feeling of God himself calling to his people. Now this would be a cool effect, the whole “large scale” calling to the fans, but the problem is that this effect appears at least once on nearly every track on the album. You can’t always crescendo into your chorus 30STM, fans are not that easy to entertain [I hope]. However, it seems some may be as a group of their fans have a similar effect put on their group vocals in the chant introduction to “Vox Populi.” Leto spends the track asking a series of questions before actually stating “this is a call to arms.” Really? Were we not gathered on the first track? If that’s the case, why didn’t the record just begin here? Also, disregarding the conventional idea of a verse to ask a series of questions is a trick you already used on “The Kill.”

Following the lovely, yet pointless “L490,” “Escape” continues the instrumental attitude of the previous track before segwaying [with the use of even more reverb] into the album’s best tracks, “Night of The Hunter” and “This is War.” “Night of the Hunter” has uses the cliche 30STM songwriting trick of jumping from quiet to loud and back and forth, but there is also the addition of some excellent synth work and a bridge that lingers in your mind for hours. Next, the title track continues the quiet-loud-quiet-loud theory, but with some of the catchiest lyrics I’ve heard in a long time. This is the true “charge into battle” track for the band. The one that truly has the power to rally their fans together and will most likely destroy in a live setting.

As the album nears its’ end, one more track that truly demands our attention: “Hurricane.” This song, which features and was developed by Kanye West, is actually as epic as 30STM try to make every other song they write. Funny how it took some outside supervision for them to nail it down. Nevertheless, Leto and crew come through big time here with a catchy, yet cold feeling track that will probably have about 543 remixes by this time in January. It should be noted though, once Kanye starts his verse, he steals the track. The follow-up track, “Closer to the Edge” feels radio ready, but may get confused for an over-produced Daughtry song [yea, I said it] and “Search and Destroy,” the track after that, is catchy, but far too overblown in size/length.

For the third album in a row now, I’m confused by the mindset of Jared Leto and the rest of 30 Seconds to Mars. I just don’t get what it is that they’re going for with their sound. At times it screams to be recognized as this epic testament to rock, but the simplistic lyrics and over reverb-ed battle cries disguised as choruses begs for radio/mainstream attention. I appreciate their attempts to bridge the two, but with few actual songs ever being shorter than 5 minutes, how is the casual listener to approach the band? Also, this combination of forces [epic vs. pop] causes what could great songs to feel empty or too long. There just isn’t enough focus here to produce a solid album and instead we end up having to pick and choose our tracks which will probably lead most to just buy them individually on Itunes and actually, that’s probably what everyone should with this one.

Score: 6/10

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James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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