30 Seconds to Mars' self-titled debut album is a disturbing, hour-long journey to a post-apocalyptic civilization led by none other than the most post-apocalyptic of all--Jared Leto. Never mind that the very idea of an actor fronting a band is laughable enough (Dogstar?), what is truly disdainful, yet wickedly amusing, about 30 Seconds to Mars is their heinous combination of industrial music and Rambaldian lyrics.
Leto may be shy about fronting a band, but Mars certainly isn't shy about backing their songs with pre-recorded drum tracks and bizarre technological squeaks that sound like a busted-up blender on overdrive.
Once Leto has either commanded listeners to "stand out on the edge of the earth... and crawl into this new future space" or welcomed them into a new universe, he spends the last two minutes of each one of the seemingly interminable tracks repeating the chorus, perhaps to convince the listener that his ideas are not that bizarre ("I'm actually talented, I'm actually talented...").
Equally creepy are Leto's distorted vocals that soon begin to sound like the very bellows of Satan himself. Heck, the Prince of Darkness may not have been Jordan Catalano in My So-Called Life, but I'm positive that he could have put out a better album.
--Hilary Lewis
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