30 Seconds to Mars Albums (2)
'A Beautiful Lie'
Release Date 8/16/2005
Tracks 12
Label Virgin/Immortal
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
It's easy to take potshots at actors turned musicians, since it often seems like the actors are taking advantage of their celebrity by turning into recording stars. This ignores two facts: first, often these actors have been playing music for as long as they've been acting; and second, who's to say that these critics, if put in the same position, wouldn't take advantage of their celebrity to pursue their dream projects? In the case of 30 Seconds to Mars, the metallic post-grunge quartet led by Jared Leto (after all these years, still best-known as Jordan Catalano on the alt rock-era TV series My So-Called Life, although he has been excellent in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream and David Fincher's Fight Club and Panic Room, as well), these actor-turned-musician arguments don't really matter since, by any measure, the band is quite awful. A melange of U2 atmospherics, grunge angst, gothic brooding, and metal guitars, the band floats out of time, inspired heavily by '90s alt rock but too clean, heavy, and facile to truly be part of that tradition, yet too indebted to the past to sound like part of the 2000s, either. Their second album, 2005's A Beautiful Lie -- whose title is uncomfortably close to Nine Inch Nails' "Terrible Lie" (and is most likely not borrowed from the Amazing Rhythm Aces' 1975 song of the same name, either) -- is a little tighter and more streamlined than their eponymous 2002 debut, but the basic angst-ridden rock remains the same. Leto isn't a terrible singer -- a little too breathy at times and a little too inclined to dive into a full-throated scream, but not terrible -- and the bandmembers are capable enough at shifting from tense quiet verses to piledriving, heavy choruses, but they borrow the worst habits from all their favorite groups, and then assemble them in insufferably earnest fashion, playing clichés as if they were revelations. It's a bleak yet hammy collection of self-absorbed gloom-rock, a record where an allusion to the title of the Cure's "Just Like Heaven" is treated as something soul-searching and profound (of course, it does hurt that A Beautiful Lie is being released just a month before "Just Like Heaven" is being borrowed for the title of a Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy). It's clear that Leto and the rest of 30 Seconds to Mars really mean it, man -- this is as earnest as an emo record gets. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
'30 Seconds to Mars'
Release Date 1/1/2002
Tracks 13
Label Virgin America/EMI UK
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
30 Seconds to Mars amassed quite a tsunami of industry buzz well before they had finished recording their self-titled debut, and for good reason. Their debut album is a cataclysmic car crash of progressive rock experimentation that draws on influences as far ranging as Pink Floyd, Rush, and Brian Eno. Keenly piecing together an intergalactic tapestry that harbors elements of industrial, prog rock, and modern alternative, 30 Seconds to Mars ventures well beyond the average boundaries other rock acts choose to limit themselves to. In doing so, these men have taken a daring new step in musical evolution, leaving vast corridors of sound open for the listener to meander down at will. Vocally, 30 Seconds to Mars proceeds to uncover new avenues of melody that such legendary singers as Bono and John Lennon surely helped inspire, yet the passion and heart that radiate from every miniscule whisper or gut-wrenching wail are breathtaking. These mesmerizing vocals are accompanied by some of the most awe-inspiring feats of musical expression captured on record since humans set foot on the moon. Lyrically, 30 Seconds to Mars escapes from the doldrums of introverted self-pity that are common for the modern rock landscape and instead offers an intriguing portrait of a futuristic existence. These space-age themes compliment the group's advanced musical achievements wonderfully. 30 Seconds to Mars has managed to record an album that breathes life into the empty shell that corporate rock has become, and in reanimating an avenue of musical expression that has for many years been on its deathbed, has quite possibly offered the single best rock experience of 2002. ~ Jason D. Taylor, All Music Guide
