Album Review: 30 Seconds to Mars - 'Love Lust Faith + Dreams'

30 Seconds to Mars is a name that has become associated with 'epic' music. After the release of 2009's 'This is War', the band was propelled to enormous heights, leaving big shoes and high expectations for what was to follow. 2013 has brought the much awaited follow-up, 'Love Lust Faith Dreams,' an album that, unfortunately, fails to meet any kind of expectation, with the album being the most lackluster of 30STM's career.

The first track on the album, 'Conquistador,' is one of the stronger tracks on the band's latest offering (albeit hindered by one of the most jarring and awkward transitions between an intro track and the first song of album one may've ever heard), boasting a strong riff, and a catchy chorus that seems to resemble the epic style of the group's previous work fairly well. The next track, 'Up In The Air,' is another one of the more bearable tracks on the full-length (despite a bit repetitive), showing some really strong harmonies and dynamic changes. While, these two tracks don't manage to quite meet the expectations, they show a lot of potential for the rest of the record. This potential is however, for the most part, wasted.

You can't blame the band for not trying, as there is quite a bit of experimentation on this album. Unfortunately, the problem isn't in the ideas, but rather in the failed execution. The movement into a far more electronic sound (City of Angels, Bright Lights, Northern Lights) manages to initially strike you as an interesting turning point in the band's sound, but by the end will have you bored out of your mind. Using strings to create a lead melody amongst the electronic soundscape (The Race) may have seemed like a cool idea, but once executed just turned out extremely awkward to listen to, and then you have tracks such as 'End of All Days', which really just seem to push on despite any noticeable drive or inspiration behind it.

The mostly instrumental tracks on the album ('Birth', 'Pyres of Varanasi', 'Convergence', 'Depuis le Début') seem to serve no actual purpose here, aside from adding to the track numbers and filling in spare time. In fact, the outro track, 'Depuis Le Début' feels more like the start of an album than the end, leaving you expecting more, but fairly thankful that there isn't.

However, there is one 'diamond in the rough' in the back end of the album, found in the track 'Do or Die,' with the song boasting powerful melodies, uplifting vocal phrases, and what is easily the best use of electronics on the album, and is actually, in its own right, a fantastic song. However, just one track isn't enough to save the rest of the album from a sea of monotony and boredom.

With 'Love Lust Faith and Dreams,' 30 Seconds To Mars have released an album that seems to lack any real purpose or motivation, with almost every track just sounding boring and uninspired. This album had the potential to be a lot more than it is, but the final product is just bland, fake, and overproduced.

1.  Birth
2. Conquistador
3. Up In The Air
4. City of Angels
5. The Race
6. End of All Days
7. Pyres of Varanasi
8. Bright Lights
9. Do or Die
10. Convergence
11. Northern Lights
12. Depuis Le Début