Band: 30 Seconds To Mars
Album title: This Is War
Label: Virgin Records
Distributor: EMI
Release date: November 2009
Release: CD

Award winning band 30 Seconds to Mars is an American rock band from L. A. and was formed in 1998 by the hands of Shannon Leto, 30 Seconds to Mars began as a small family project. The band features actor Jared Leto as vocalist, rhythm guitarist and songwriter, his brother Shannon on drums and Tomo Miličević also on guitar.

You may know them from hits like “A Beautiful Lie”, “the Kill” and “From Yesterday”. But they are not only music orientated, you also may recognize front man Jared Leto who is also an actor from movies like “The Thin Red Line”, “Requiem For A Dream”, “fight Club” and many more .

I got to know the band due to “A Beautiful Lie” and at that point you could describe the band as a Screamo rock band with some electro elements (like Muse for example). In that era that song (and others songs of the band) had a certain “bigness” to them. Every song had the same formula where the vocals stated out softly but when coming to the chorus the volume got turned open and had a certain apotheosis where everything fell in its place and you really had a “wow” effect. Also, it felt like they knew what they we’re singing about. Witch made the songs really sound cool and epic, but unfortunately made them sound very similar.

Now several years later of me listening to more extreme music, I was interested in how they would sound now. Unfortunately I was let down by the guys. They still work with the same formula with only one new element. On a few songs they have incorporated a few screams and chants of fans, this gives those few songs an extra punch, but like I said this is the only new element.

This is even more disappointing due to the fact that the first couple of songs on the album sound pretty good, but after song nr. 6 or 7 you have the feeling that the rest of the songs are rubbish and are just there as space fillers on the disc. The biggest disappointment was that the thing that made previous songs (of other albums) so epic, the feeling that they know what they are singing about is no longer noticeable on this record and that the songs just sound meaningless, cold and empty.

To me it feels like they have lost there touch/muse and that this album is just made something fast to please fans and make a profit.

52/100

Jeroen.