Well, it’s been two weeks now since 30 Seconds to Mars’ new album dropped since 2018, but because of my lackluster response to most of the singles dropped, I really wasn’t looking forward to this new full-length, It’s the End of the World but It’s a Beautiful Day.
Firstly, the title? This is not 2005 and they are not Panic! at the Disco, so why the cumbersome title? I suppose it’s the only way they could manage to sum up this disappointment of a record. I know that’s harsh, but it’s true. I’d like to think that I normally give bands the benefit of the doubt when charting new musical territory, but this record was so far from anything 30 Seconds to Mars’ previous work that if I heard a few of these songs randomly, I’d have no idea who it was! That’s not good! And I don’t mean that just from a sound perspective. They’ve been shifting away from rock for quite some time, but Jared Leto’s vocals are so worked over that I could barely recognize him.
The only two songs I managed to walk away from thinking reluctantly that I liked them was lead single, “Stuck,” and the following track on the album, “Life is Beautiful.” Seems a shame they are not playing that festival in Vegas this year. I found that a lot of the songs off the record dangerously boarded sounding like something out of the country-pop playbook. That’s awful! They went away from the anthemic sound that has been with them since This is War and replaced it with some auto-tuned and practically whispered garbage. That can specifically be heard in tracks like, “Seasons” and “Never Not Love You,” but really, take your pick.
And if they were on the precipice of dipping into country music, then we were left with the most generic sounding pop music I’ve heard over the last decade. Again, there were some songs, like “Midnight Prayer,” where I would have never guessed in a million years that it was Leto singing had I not been listening to the album specifically. It’s like they managed to wrangle together the worst of what One Direction would have come up with. Now, I would have loved this coming from One Direction, but this is 30 Seconds to Mars, and that’s not what they do! With that, the one other predominantly pop song that gets a pass from me was “7:1” as I liked how it addressed Leto’s feelings and attitudes towards fame.
I know I am shitting on this new record pretty hard, but for a band that I’ve been listening to for over 20 years, this just really let me down. I am still very much looking forward to seeing them perform at When We Were Young Festival in a month’s time, but I’m hoping and praying they stick to the old emo standouts for this nostalgic fest. Listen to the latest at your own risk.