| Leto let down |
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| Written by Anthony Saia - Argonaut | ||||||
| Monday, 25 January 2010 | ||||||
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It was time for a comeback. It was time for Jared Leto, former hunky teen featured on “My So Called Life,” to shed his ego and show the world that he and his band mates had not fallen into a rut — and that they were posers all along. Fans of 30 Seconds to Mars are likely to know of the band’s highly publicized falling out with their record label for non-payment of royalties and consequent re-signing to them along with their music after their 2005 multi-platinum sophomore release A Beautiful Lie. This incident wreaked turmoil for the band, ending in 30STM bowing to their record label with a slap-dash resolution. It seems that all the bad publicity from the aforementioned turmoil foreshadows This Is War. It is an album that should essentially kick some tail immediately out of the gate and slam their label as well as complain about all that is wrong with the world. However, the Leto brothers and guitarist Tomo Miličević dumb it down to follow the status quo. The introduction crescendos during “Escape” is a dawdling set up for lead singer Jared Leto’s breathy, ordinary vocals to be overtaken by a choir of their fans bellowing the album title in a condensed, overproduced delivery, essentially taking away any sort of urgency put forth in the slow-building intro. Of course the seed of their massive angst has been planted, but it quickly starts to sound completely played out and unnatural.
The squelching electro-pop feel of the first “real” song, “Night
of the Hunter,” has more of the choir-like vocals which show up
throughout the album like mass-produced carbon copies of each other.
Lyrics such as “Honest to God I will break your heart / Tear you to
pieces and rip you apart” immediately start to show cracks of
brilliance that should have been tapped further on this album. A quite
noticeable element of this album from the get-go is that Leto has the
ability to write some rather intriguing lyrics but does not seem to
unload himself completely with this album.
Elsewhere, the luster of their leadoff single “Kings and Queens”
cannot disguise that it is a song about the inevitable end of humanity
and sounds anything but apocalyptic. Further into the album, in the
song, “Vox Populi,” the fans show up again singing some sort of Latin
phrase about many voices. The echoing boom of voices are full of angst
reverberating so immensely there is no room for any substance, just a
stomp-stomp-clap sound reminiscent of Queen’s, “We Will Rock You.”  Add as favorites (40) | Views: 1567
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