Album Review: 30 Second To Mars - Love Lust Faith + Dreams

There's such an intense love for slick rock three-piece 30 Seconds To Mars that there's clear and present danger when someone happens to speak out against, say, one of their albums like, say, their latest. Love Lust Faith + Dreams is a bother. It's an over-embellished, overindulged structural mess weighed down by generic production that, oddly enough, washes the whole album free of anything substantial and quickly renders it a lightweight two-dimensional listen. With the no doubt ample clout these boys carry after three albums, Jared Leto's pretty face aside, they can surely knock things together with a bit more heart than this.

Musically, it could be loosely said that LLF+D is enjoyable on a cinematic kind of level, but really that's such an occasional happening that even saying that is a stretch. Birth opens quite bizarrely, almost borrowing from Inspector Gadget's theme, blasting horns and swelling strings, all to the tune of Leto and those incessant yelping wails and “ohs” he seems loath to relinquish from previous albums. Conquistador follows in the same vein, only with the addition of that dratted heavy hand at the mixing desk. All the rough edges have been polished off, to the point where there's little texture, variation or anything memorable, and this lack of fury from every guitar line, every electrified beat, makes lyrics like “In the night/The angels scream” in Do Or Die sound even more ridiculous.

LLF+D is sadly paper-thin, lyrically and sonically, and with nothing solid to anchor it down into the subconscious, it's 45 minutes better spent elsewhere.