Review Summary: 30 Seconds To Mars, aka The Jared Leto And Some Other Guys Experience, have risen to stardom on the back of hit single "The Kill". But is it all worth the hype?
When he’s not picking fights with hobbits, dissing bloggers or being a gladiator, Jared Leto likes to throw on the eyeliner and the guitar and front his band 30 Seconds To Mars. Kind of brave, considering the shoddy history of actors as musicians. Russell Crowe, Juliette Lewis, Toni Collette, Hilary Duff, Stephanie McIntosh- not a good history to be on the back of. As Moby once put it, “singers make bad actors and actors make bad singers”. Nevertheless, 30 Seconds To Mars are overall, at least on first listens, a decent band, with some top pop hooks and (mostly) strong vocals.
The record kicks off with a song that would not be unwelcome in some form of video game (which, ironically, it does- ATV Off-Road Fury 4), entitled Attack. The track features a catchy synth line, big-sounding rock drums and a chorus that just wants to make you shout along- “Run away!/Run away!/I’ll attack!”. This track also reveals Leto’s vocal kryptonite- screaming and yelling. When he tries getting aggressive on the line “I am finally free!”, it sounds like his voices thins out and cracks. It sounds terrible and how it managed to get on to the recording is beyond this writer. Thankfully, he doesn’t continuously try it track after track, as when he’s not attempting to scream, his vocals can be quite strong and effective. This is most notable on tracks like R-Evolve and Was It A Dream, where he draws his vocals back and then brings them dramatically forward, just enough to make it sound powerful and not enough to go overboard. Indeed, a happy medium is occasionally found for his vocal range.
Leto is also an interesting, and somewhat frustrating, songwriter. Your eyebrow will raise when you find that the same lyricist who writes lyrics like “I am a machine/ No longer living, just a shell of what I dreamed” can also do fairly rudimentary
and dull lyrics like “I fell to the floor/Couldn’t take this anymore”. Sometimes, it’s in the way he sings it that makes it a good lyric. At least, you are under the impression it’s a good lyric, until you look it up and find it’s kind of lame. You know that he has some form of potential, so why isn’t it used?
But of course, it would be cruel to judge this record purely on Leto but at the same time, it’s fairly easy as little can be said about the other members. While guitarist Tomo Milicevic is fairly competent at his instrument, he just doesn’t particularly break out musically; choosing (or possibly being forced??) to more provide a good backbone to the songs. The same can also be said about the formidable rhythm section, featuring Leto’s brother, Shannon, pounding away on the skins and Matt Watcher providing the unsurprising bass lines, yet some exceptional keyboard work; very atmospheric and blending excellently. While there’s nothing exceptionally bad about their musicianship, hardly anything on this record, musically, seems to think outside the square. Wherever you think there could be room for improvement, it simply just doesn’t happen. The only time where the band really challenges and expands themselves is on the last track on the album, a cover of Bjork’s Hunter. It has an awesome beat and some great sounds going all the way through; but at times Leto’s vocals are just too much and you think it would sound so much better with a different vocalist. It’s almost like the man is a blessing and a curse at the same time.
All of this, as a result of all the aforementioned pros and cons, is a listenable but somewhat disappointing album, considering the potential that this band has. Maybe when Leto gets himself together vocally, and the band get better at their instruments, we’ll be able to see what they’re really capable of.
