30 Seconds To Mars – ‘This Is War’
Sadly, my dream that this would be an account of what happened on the day the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were first introduced has not been realised. There are no details of what Death said to Famine on shaking hands (“wow, you’re almost as thin as I am”, probably) or what disgusting smear Pestilence left on War’s armour.
There are also no lyrics devoted to the inevitable four-hour bickerfest in order to decide what to call their little troupe: a rite of passage familiar to anyone who’s ever tried to get a new gang off the ground.
“how about the End of the World Four?”, “No, that’s too ‘beat combo’. Apokkalips?”, “I dunno, people might think we’re a boyband”, “or a metal band”, “and what is so wrong with being thought of as a metal band?”, “well it’s alright for you, War, you look the part”, “Pestilence, can you stop oozing on my sandwiches? You KNOW how hungry I am”, and so on.
I don’t know what 30 Seconds To Mars were thinking really, wasting a perfectly good title on some declaration of defiance. I mean, how ORDINARY…
Just kidding. No song can really be described as ordinary if it features Jared Leto attempting to inspire his immense army of troops to keep fighting until the edge of the Earth, by screaming at them as if it’s the battle of Agincourt and he is the French.
I mean, yes, there is a slight element of bombastic fooey to proceedings. It’s just possible that the song was inspired by watching too many movie trailers, as a lot of the lyrics seem to have that hyper-dramatic pitch to them. I’m surprised Jared doesn’t sing something along the lines of “In a world of [badthing] and [anotherbadthing], one man must seek out the [courage/strength/hope] he needs, to save the [woman/family/treehouse] he loves from the forces of [reallybadthing].”
But really, that is just what this band are like. They’ve taken the internal bleak drama of emo, and pumped it full of muscular passion and martial fury, before projecting it onto a really, REALLY wide screen. It would make no sense for music this committed to be anything less than ridiculously overblown.
Suddenly lyrics about why some girls are a bit rubbish would seem lame. Worlds collide, cultures rise and fall, there’s a messiah, a pariah, but definitely no Mariah. That is how 30 Seconds To Mars do what they do, and if you have a problem with it, I suggest you take it up with the enormous army of eyeliner-clad warriors waiting in the car park.
Careful though, they have sharp nails.
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(Fraser McAlpine)
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