Album Review: 30 Seconds To Mars - Love, Lust, Faith + Dreams
- Written by Danielle Gibson
After a four year wait, 30 Seconds To Mars are back with Love, Lust, Faith +Dreams. After the massive success that was This Is War, does this new album stand a chance at doing an even better job?
It is a great album, but it feels like you’ve listened to it before. Maybe because it’s full of power and contemporary rock songs that you can chant along to at festivals. Sound familiar? Many bands are doing this currently and it is not anything new. The same goes for the whole concept album idea. But don’t let that discourage you from the album; all the songs are fantastic, well written and scored. The band have really outdone themselves with twelve hits that could all equally be single releases.
The way to talk about Love, Lust, Faith + Dreams is by just that. Each word represents a set of the songs on the album and the opening tracks come under Love, which is ‘Birth’ and ‘Conquisitor’. ‘Birth’ opens the album very dramatically and changes into a heavy synth instrumental piece but the ending doesn’t really link into the next song. It’s abrupt and for a concept album you would expect there to be more of a thematic link. Despite this ‘Conquisitor’ is a song to remember, it’s a proper anthem belter and you will be head banging and chanting along with it. It’s strong and lead vocalist Jared Leto is gives a screamathon to remember.
Next we have Lust which contains ‘Up In The Air’, ‘City Of Angels’, ‘The Race’ and ‘End Of All Days', which makes up the largest segment of the album. ‘Up In The Air’ was released as the lead single in March and starts of Lust perfectly. It’s strong and has some excellent lyrics showing how negative this song is despite how upbeat it is. Phrases like “I will wrap my hands around your neck so tight with love” shows a broken individual as does “This is a portrait of a tortured you and I”. One of the few songs on this album which isn't as anthem-like as the rest is ‘City Of Angels’ which tells a story about finding home. Lust really brings a downer on the album as these songs are about heartbreak and pain. It finishes with ‘End Of All Days’, which as the title hints is heavily religion focussed. The song ends with a heartbeat monitor stopping, representing death.
We now come to Faith which starts with the funereal ‘Pyres Of Varansi’. This is an instrumental, but serves as the beginning of a lighter section. ‘Bright Lights’ like 90% of the album graces us with the ever chanting ‘oohs’ but this section is more of a happy area of the album. It’s very summer-like, lighter. And you can’t forget it is an anthem with lyrics like “Bright lights, big city, she dreams of love/he lives to run”.
Dream is introduced by ‘Convergence’ and ends the album with ‘Northern Lights’ and ‘Depuis Le Début’. The latter translates as ‘since the beginning’ and ends the album as well as it can. It’s as loud as the opener, dramatic with the use of strings and creepily ends with an eerie music box chime.
All together this is a brilliant album that you can crash and burn away with. It’s full of songs to send your emotions running around your head like you’re on fire. Leto really belts out his voice in all the songs and makes them quite unforgettable. Shannon Leto and Tomo Mili?evi? are as equally great and all band members merge together and have created something that you will remember. The only thing you can say isn’t great about this album is that the concept is overused - power anthems which tell a story. Maybe we’ll see this album on Broadway one day. It’s great but maybe not as great as This is War but will definitely give 30 Seconds To Mars fan something to sink their teeth into.
Love, Lust, Faith + Dreams is available now from amazon