Thirty Seconds to Mars

Thirty Seconds to Mars are one of the rare bands who started as a family project and grew into a stadium-sized force without ever losing the intensity that made them worth following. Formed in Los Angeles in 1998 by brothers Jared Leto and Shannon Leto, the group built its sound on the idea that rock could be cinematic, communal, and unapologetically big. Jared handles vocals, guitar, and the band's restless creative vision, while Shannon's drumming gives the music its propulsion. For much of their most beloved era they were joined by guitarist Tomo Milicevic, whose textures helped shape the band's widescreen feel.

Their 2002 self-titled debut, produced by Bob Ezrin, introduced a band more interested in atmosphere and concept than in chasing radio. It was the 2005 follow-up, A Beautiful Lie, that turned them into something far larger. The title track is a study in coiled tension and release, and "The Kill (Bury Me)" became a generational anthem, its quiet-to-roaring dynamics and that unforgettable "what if I wanted to break" refrain making it one of the defining alternative songs of its moment. "Attack," with its sharp guitars and racing pulse, showed the harder edge underneath the melodrama. Together these songs captured everything the band did well: vulnerability dressed in scale, hooks that felt like they were meant to be screamed back by thousands of people.

What followed proved that scale was the point. The band recorded their third album, This Is War, during a long and difficult legal battle with their label, and rather than shrink from the pressure they made their most ambitious record yet. The title track is a marching, chant-driven epic, and "Closer to the Edge" is pure catharsis, the kind of song built for the back row of an arena. This Is War leaned into choirs, crowd voices, and a sense of communal uplift, turning the band's audience into part of the music itself. It is a record about endurance, and it sounds like one.

From there the band kept reaching outward. Love, Lust, Faith and Dreams in 2013 pushed further into electronic textures and widescreen production, followed by America in 2018 and It's the End of the World but It's a Beautiful Day in 2023. Across these releases the Letos have never been content to repeat themselves, treating each album as its own world with its own visual language, mythology, and emotional stakes. That ambition has always divided opinion, which is exactly what you would expect from a band that prefers swinging big to playing it safe.

What makes Thirty Seconds to Mars worth hearing now is the same thing that drew people in two decades ago: the conviction. These are songs designed to be felt at full volume and shared with a crowd, songs about breaking and rebuilding and refusing to back down. Whether you come to them through the raw heart of "The Kill" or the rallying surge of "This Is War," the invitation is the same. Turn it up, and let it get as large as it wants to be.