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**30 Seconds To Mars - This Is War**
★★★★☆

By the time 30 Seconds To Mars entered the studio to craft their third opus, they'd already survived the kind of industry warfare that would have felled lesser bands. The Jared Leto-fronted outfit had spent the better part of two years locked in a brutal legal battle with EMI, who were demanding $30 million in damages after the band attempted to void their contract. It was a David versus Goliath scenario that would have broken most acts, but for Mars, it became the perfect storm from which to birth their most ambitious and defiant statement yet.

"This Is War," released in December 2009, arrived like a battle cry from the trenches of corporate rock politics. The album's very existence feels like a middle finger raised to the suits who tried to silence them, and that rebellious spirit courses through every synthesized heartbeat and arena-sized chorus. This is 30 Seconds To Mars at their most grandiose and uncompromising – a band who looked into the abyss of industry machinations and decided to stare right back.

Musically, the album represents a bold evolutionary leap from their previous alternative rock foundations into something far more expansive and electronic. Leto and company have crafted a sonic landscape that borrows equally from Nine Inch Nails' industrial atmospherics, U2's stadium-conquering ambition, and the cinematic scope that Leto's day job as an actor clearly influences. The production, handled by Flood, Steve Lillywhite, and the band themselves, is pristine yet powerful – every synthesizer stab and drum hit designed to fill the largest venues imaginable.

The album's opening salvo, "Escape," immediately establishes the new sonic template with its pulsing electronics and Leto's increasingly theatrical vocal delivery. But it's the title track that truly announces their intentions. "This Is War" is five and a half minutes of pure anthemic gold, built around a hypnotic electronic pulse and featuring one of the most effective call-and-response choruses in recent memory. The song's accompanying video, featuring hundreds of fans lip-syncing the lyrics, became a viral sensation and perfectly captured the band's growing cult of devotion.

"Kings and Queens" stands as perhaps the album's finest moment – a soaring epic that marries their newfound electronic tendencies with genuine emotional heft. Leto's vocals reach stratospheric heights while the band creates a wall of sound that's both intimate and massive. It's the kind of song that transforms festival crowds into believers and showcases exactly why 30 Seconds To Mars have become such a formidable live proposition.

The album's experimental tendencies reach their peak on tracks like "Search and Destroy," which strips everything back to electronic minimalism, and "Alibi," featuring a guest appearance from Kanye West producer No I.D. These moments prove that the band aren't content to simply repeat their past successes but are genuinely interested in pushing their sound into uncharted territory.

However, "This Is War" isn't without its indulgences. At 60 minutes, the album occasionally feels bloated, with some tracks like "Vox Populi" serving more as atmospheric interludes than fully realized songs. Leto's increasingly messianic stage persona can also grate when it overshadows the genuinely strong songwriting underneath.

More than a decade after its release, "This Is War" stands as a fascinating time capsule of a band refusing to be broken by industry pressure. The album's themes of resistance and unity have only grown more relevant in our increasingly fractured times, while its blend of rock grandiosity and electronic innovation helped pave the way for countless arena-rock acts who followed.

The record ultimately succeeded in its primary mission – it established 30 Seconds To Mars as a major league act capable of headlining festivals and selling out arenas worldwide. More importantly, it proved that bands could survive the music industry's most brutal machinations and emerge stronger on the other side.

"This Is War" remains their creative and commercial peak – a bold, occasionally brilliant statement from a band who refused to surrender when the odds were stacked against them. In an era when most rock bands play it safe, 30 Seconds To Mars swung for the fences and largely connected.