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After reading all the hype about the Kanye West and Jared Leto collaboration on "Hurricane" I expected a bit more. Not that hearing Jared's whispery voice work its way into a frenzy of high notes and screams doesn't impress. But you just know the music is following the same recipe when, even after turning up the sound and intently listening to the lyrics, you feel cheated song after song. It all sounds the same. It's one continuous wave of sound that fades into the next.
This is no call to war that will shatter the airwaves and demand that we pick a fight. It's more like a hippie war rally. Make love not war is the subtext. There are more than enough slow melodies and whispery breaths, complete with backing choirs on "Escape" for that.
But still the music somehow manages to get you high. Even if "Night of the Hunter" and "Closer to the Edge" recycle the same electronic beats and emo-lyrics over and over at least they're still listenable tunes.
You see, 30 Seconds to Mars is now a progressive rock band. We need the crescendo to motivate an earth shattering rock revolution. We need to feel anger ("Search and Destroy"), angst, hatred, pain ("Stranger in a Strange Land"), camaraderie ("Vox Populi") and in the end defeat or even victory. It's all part and parcel of any war. But even though it's a likeable 30 Seconds to Mars sound, This is War has no particular message strong enough to inspire just that.
The title song, "This is War", sounds intimidating enough, but the lyrics are seriously lacking conviction. Even if the crowd chants the playground bully call to arms: "fight, fight, fight," and it starts off as "a warning to the people", 30STM still don't tell you what the hell they’re fighting for, or why you would want to join in. In "A 100 Suns" they even declare that they don't believe in anything more than a clichéd "truth" and themselves? If Jared wants anyone to believe in war after that maybe he should try a tree hugger's convention and not his next rock concert.
Still, as "Alibi" and "L490" show this is mellow, easy listening. After a few spins the sound grows on you. But the soundtrack to a full blown battle? Nah, this is more like the sound of someone pissing on a bonsai at that tree hugger's convention.
