As mentioned in Wednesday’s post, every week I’ll be choosing an album from an extensive list of suggestions to listen to a number of times and review at the end. This week’s choice was This Is War by Thirty Seconds To Mars.
I’ve been a fan of the band for a while, my favourite album being A Beautiful Lie. On that album, my favourite songs were “Attack” and “The Kill”, but after a mild obsession with Jared Leto’s eyes (he really does have BEAUTIFUL eyes…) and some serious music video stalking, I began to love the album’s namesake single, “A Beautiful Lie”. Then the fascination with the “From Yesterday” video coaxed me to listen to the songs in between, and before I knew it I was listening to the whole album on repeat and singing along to every song… even letting the pause in the middle of “A Modern Myth” play out to get to the hidden track, “Praying For A Riot”.
Prior to listening through the album, I’ve been introduced to a few songs. I went to see Paramore with some friends in December of last year, and they played this album in the car on the way from Preston to Birmingham. Since then whenever I’ve spent time with that group in the car, the album’s ended up going on, and more of the songs were being sung along to by a few of the guys, while I enjoyed it thoroughly, but reflected back to times when I’d be doing the same to A Beautiful Lie.
This is what made the album choice so easy, I’ve been meaning to do it for a while, and thanks to my friends I’ve already heard some of the songs past what I like to call the magic 6 mark a few times, and have plenty of incentive not to skip on past them (my attention span is a bit rubbish).
By the “magic 6 mark”, I refer to how I get myself into albums like this… If the last song I know and like on an album is about 6 songs in (such as in Keane’s Hopes And Fears and, for a long time, Linkin Park’s Minutes To Midnight) I tend to skip back to the start before the rest of the album plays out, and so it makes it hard to get into the album as a whole.
The first introductory track on the album is fantastic at setting the tone, building up gently with atmospheric music and a racy beat to Leto’s soft, passionate vocals. “Escape” is a nice length for an intro track, and leads nicely into the next song, “Night Of The Hunter”.
This second song is easily one of my favourites on the album so far. The music is terrifically catchy, the vocals and lyrics are haunting and slightly dark, but still every bit the style of the band. I especially like the interposed french in parts of the song, it draws the listener’s attention and fits in perfectly.
So far the next track, “Kings And Queens”, is the only officially released single from the album. This song has everything a Thirty Seconds To Mars single should have, with great music, more amazing vocals, and an overall outburst of passion and fire that never fails to give me a mild adrenaline rush every time I listen to it.
That said, the moment the next track begins I instantly forget how much I enjoyed the one before. There’s something about “This Is War” that, for me at least, surpasses the generic level of the band and becomes something else. Perhaps that’s why I chose a music video to this song for Wednesday’s AMV. My imagination has been captured by this track, and I could quite happily listen to it all day if I didn’t have a whole album to review. It doesn’t surprise me that they’re releasing it as their next single, because it’s perfect material for that.
Following on from “This Is War” is a perfect transition into “100 Suns”, a gentle, melodic tune that I initially thought was still a part of the previous track until I noticed how long it was, and checked the song name. The bleeding of the tracks was so seemless, and the second song so perfectly fitting as a close to the one before, I didn’t even notice the change.
If I had to put my money on a third track to release for single, one of the contenders would have to be “Hurricane”. The first time I listened to it, I desperately wanted to sing along even though I didn’t know the words, and I knew that feeling would make it a winning release. But it still has competition from some of the later songs, such as “Vox Populi”, another well-paced song with a cleverly-mixed choir backing.
I’ve gone into a lot of detail on some of the songs, but I could go into so much more on the whole album. Later track such as “Search And Destroy” and “Closer To The Edge” have such catchy beats, and lyrics that hook your interest. The gentle melody of “Alibi” fits in well as one of the softer tracks on the album. But I must admit, it’s the fantastic intro to “Stranger In A Strange Land” that keeps me from flicking on, not to mention the powerful vocals from Leto when the music dies down in the verse. And the final track, “L490”, rounds things off perfectly with a beautifully haunting instrumental, and some deliciously edgy chanting towards the end.
One thing Thirty Seconds To Mars is extremely good at is making an album that seems to flow and change throughout, with some songs bleeding through into others, some bits stopping and starting… and though many other artists have their faster songs in the first half and their slower ones in the second, building up then back down throughout the album, Thirty Seconds To Mars defies this pattern. Listening to a whole CD from them feels like a rollercoaster, constantly soaring and dipping with every change of pace, and it’s one of the things that makes them unique.
As an avid fan of the A Beautiful Lie album in particular, I wasn’t expecting This Is War to capture my heart as much as it has, but it’s just so beautifully them; their style, their passion and values. I even love the way they’ve designed their album covers, using photographs of fans to make so many unique copies. If you haven’t bought yours yet, I suggest you do!
Kirsty Watkinson
Kexiebee 