It’s The End Of The World But It’s A Beautiful Day is a triumphant new musical offering from Thirty Seconds To Mars, which Jared Leto co-founded with his brother Shannon and has been driven by their intuitive creative interplay ever since. The siblings wrote hundreds of new songs over the last several years and specifically carved out these ten for the album, inspired by the gamut of emotions and experiences through which they’ve navigated in the five years since the release of their chart-topping previous album, America.
“Shannon and I wanted to make an album that speaks to who we are now,” Jared says of the project, which is led by the propulsive single and opening song, “Stuck.” “The connective threads are a sense of optimism, celebration, vulnerability, and simplicity too. We didn’t want to return to something we’re familiar with, and I think we did that.”
It’s The End Of The World But It’s A Beautiful Day is focused and concise, with no songs longer than three-and-a-half minutes and an emphasis on Jared’s emotive, straight-from-the-heart vocals. The group explores new feelings and colors while taking solace in the elemental: love, seizing the moment, heartbreak, and transcendence. Among the highlights are the strident, hook-filled “Seasons,” which is enveloped in the reassuring warmth of acoustic guitar and effervescent synths; the roof-raising, arms-in-the-air tracks “Life Is Beautiful” and “Avalanche”; and the artfully produced gems “World on Fire” and “7:1.”
“If you’d have asked me when I was a kid if I’d release a single album, I would have told you you were crazy,” Jared says. “I’m an art school dropout but I was a musician first. In fact, there’ve been these funny times in my life when I was just a musician and didn’t make a film for six years. Now, it seems to have all come full circle.”
