Track Listing

1. Attack
2. A Beautiful Lie
3. The Kill
4. Was It A Dream?
5. The Fantasy
6. Savior
7. From Yesterday
8. The Story
9. R-Evolve
10. A Modern Myth
11. Battle of One
12. Hunter

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1903 in Music
• Released on: 2005-08-30
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.com
With over 15 acclaimed films to his credit, actor Jared Leto knew he had a challenge in creating a legitimate musical group, and the fact that a great many gifted thespians have pumped out some pretty awful albums hasn't slowed him at all. "Any time you have a precedent that's negative like that, you're gonna have an uphill battle," he agrees. "I've never shied away from that." Yet 30 Seconds To Mars' self-titled 2002 debut easily established the group as a fresh, new force, revealing a multi-faceted outfit that thrived on creative exploration and escape.

Three years later, their follow-up, A Beautiful Lie, catapulted the group to even greater success. Where the debut’s line-up featured Jared on all guitar, bass, synth and vocals with brother Shannon on drums, a full collaboration developed with A Beautiful Lie, including guitarist Tomo Milicevic and bassist Matt Wachter. "The last thing we wanted to do was make the same record twice," Leto explains. Hundreds of tour dates and a 1996 MTV Nomination for "Best Video" later, 30 Seconds To Mars are proving their stability and still challenging their position. "We're interested in being as modern as we can," Leto concludes. "We're striving to do something different, to look forward rather than back, to be free from the shadows of our inspiration, and to continue, with our voice to make our mark."

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Customer Reviews

A Change Of Pace, But Still A Great Sound.
30 Seconds To Mars burst onto the scene back in 2002 with their self-titled album. Despite being fronted by Jared Leto (the actor who has appeared in two of my favorite films: "Fight Club" and "Requiem For A Dream"), the effort didn't receive that much attention, and listening to it, it's easy to see why. Don't get me wrong, their debut was great, but for a band establishing themselves, it was too broad, too spacey, and too high concept for people to really give it a fair chance. So it's no surprise that for their second album, "A Beautiful Lie," 30 Seconds To Mars have trimmed the fat off and streamlined their music quite a bit.

"A Beautiful Lie" is more of a collection of songs that a concept album. There is no discernable theme running through it, which means each song brings something different to the table, and has it's own identity. And not only that, each song is just as good as the one before it! Instead of sounding like an electronic-Tool like they did on their debut, 30 Seconds To Mars sound like a perfect amalgumation of A Perfect Circle, The Cure and Incubus. "The Kill" and the first single, "Attack" are the most recognizable and straight-forward of the set, centered around giant choruses and excellent songwriting. "The Fantasy" is my personal favorite, with it's funky intro and unpredictable changes in style. "Battle Of One" and "Hunter," which are tagged as "bonus tracks" (though they are hardly exclusive, and available on all copies of this album) are great in their own right, but feel tacked on. Perhaps that's why they are called "bonus tracks?"

Overall, "A Beautiful Lie" is a step-up for 30 Seconds To Mars. The debut was a good start, but this album just strengthens the groups catalog and shows that they have a lot more diversity than many of their contemporaries. And the best part is, their music has nothing to do with Jared Leto's acting career. You don't even have to know who the guy is in order to know that this is great music. If you enjoyed the first album, I highly recommend their second. When they first came out, I honestly doubted they would release anymore music, but I was wrong. So, here's looking forward to the third effort.

Content Protection
This is a great CD, great Band. BUT, the content protection that is a part of it won't let you copy the music to your hard drive or put it on an iPod. This may not matter to you, so don't bother reading on. However, if this does matter to you then don't buy the CD. The fact that I cannot put the music that I purchased onto my iPod is extremely annoying. I do not appreciate this feature in any way. So, five stars to the band, no stars to this CD. From now on, if I see "Content Protected" I'm gonna steer clear. I feel stupid having wasted money on one of these, but oh well, live and learn. If you care about this, learn from me.

Space Metal with a dash of reality
OK. First the venting.
I just hate having to listen to or be associated with inexperienced listeners when they think they know what they're talking about. I hear a lot of comparisons to The Used and even Nickelback, and Breaking Benjamin. The worst part is that these off base comparisons go one step further and accuse 30 seconds of TRYING to be like them.

If you have been listening to music for years and actually paying attention, you'd realize that 30 seconds can be said to sound influenced by MANY bands of the 80s and some 90s (the Cure, U2, depeche mode, deftones, orgy, incubus, bjork etc). But to skip that step and think that a 30 something like Leto would be trying to copy The Used is so uninsightful it should be stricken from memory.

ON to the album.....OK while still venting.
People's first reactions to new discs are often extreme regarding bands they like. Its so painfully obvious here. Its just not true that 30 seconds lost their sound. I admit that there is probably less of what stuck out as a futuristic sound. The album is probably farther down the scale from avante garde to mainstream. But there is so much in common with the last album.

I actually had a song in my head today and had to ask myself which album it was off of. (this is partly because it seemed too familiar to be coming from a week old disc, and partly because THE DISCS HAVE A LOT IN COMMON).

So take comfort in the fact that you have a very good disc from the same band (what have you done in the last 3 years lazies - myself included). And if they write enough material, you might get everything you're looking for over time. But in the meantime we have to remember that we got lucky that the first album sounded just right to us....and this one is closer to that particular sound than anything else out there. In fact many people will like this one more...they just didn't buy the album the first week because they weren't fans yet.

My friends and I actually managed to harass Leto after a show about 3 years ago, and asked him where they could go on future albums considering they had such a strong and unusual theme. He didn't have an extravagant answer, but just said not to take the Mars thing too literally, that its more of a symbol of reaching out.

So it only makes sense that the lyrical and sonic direction of future discs is going to go much more into the realm of the reality we know and only occasionally go head first into the "space metal" thing.

I think the Mars thing is an appealing escape, but who can make their entire music career (every song, every album cover, every lyric) relate to such an abstract idea. There has to be room for real world subject matter and a real world feel to come in also.

But yea....hopefully plenty more creative and unusual space metal to come.