THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS: It's The End of the World but it's a Beautiful Day

There's an old pearl of wisdom regarding rock and roll:  Great songwriting will always sound just as effective as a stripped-down acoustic arrangement as it does in a three- or four-piece electric format.  Consider the counter-evidence:  The entire catalog of Thirty Seconds to Mars.  They don't have so much of a signature sound as a relentless commitment to grandeur and sheen.  Strip away the digital overproduction from any one song and you're left with about thirty seconds of genuine songcraft.

Their new album It’s The End of The World but It’s A Beautiful Day (perhaps the most pretentious album title since their last one, 2018’s America, or the one before that, 2013's Love Lust Faith + Dreams) is chock full of such grandeur and sheen.  Sometimes, it works.  Stuck is a groovy midtempo album opener. Seasons is elevated by the quirky electronics of the chorus.  But most of the songs are so overloaded with digital clutter, it’s hard to hear them for their original merits.  

And then there’s frontman Jared Leto.  While Jared Leto the movie star is undeniably gutsy and versatile, Jared Leto the singer has exactly one range:  Dramatic, ambitious, too slick for his own good.  He tackles every vocal with the subtlety of a stretched limousine.  Every verse has to sound like a breathy seduction, every chorus has to sound like a full-blown orgasm.  Leto has the chops to write, sing and play a great song, but he has no time for nuance or subtlety.

And that's a shame, because Thirty Seconds to Mars is occasionally beautiful, especially when they ease off the sky-high posturing.  100 Suns from 2009's This Is War is still one of their most effective tracks.  It's worth a quick listen; the song is little more than Leto's subdued vocals and an acoustic guitar, and it doesn't even clock two minutes.  If only Thirty Seconds to Mars were to approach more of their songwriting with that kind of delicacy, they might truly achieve liftoff.  C-