A Beautiful Lie by 30 Seconds To Mars (CD, Aug-2005, Virgin Records USA)

I absolutely love this CD. I bought it on a whim after receiving a free download of 30 Seconds to Mars' (30STM) song "The Kill" and falling in love with it. To anyone who has not heard 30STM before, I suggest going to YouTube.com and searching "The Kill 30 Seconds To Mars" and listening to the video. That's right, listen to the video. Unless you are a fan of "The Shining," the music video is extremely weird and may steer you away from buying a great CD.
On to the music. The CD opens with the song "Attack". This song is really just a cool song. The lyrics are catchy, and the song will stay in your head for quite some time...that is, until you move on in the CD.
The second track, "A Beautiful Lie", shares its name with the name of the CD itself. This song is slower than "Attack", but equally as catchy.
The third song, up and away my favorite, "The Kill", is one of the best songs I've heard in quite some time. It starts out slow, and busts out into a loud chorus that you will be singing over and over again. The music video is awesome if you like "The Shining" but otherwise I reccommend staying away from it other than to listen to it.
The fourth song, "Was it a Dream?", is a slower song that I enjoy, but has a 50+ second introduction that I haven't listened to since the first time I heard the song.
The fifth song, "The Fantasy", is a song with simple background music for the verses with almost whispered lyrics, and a chorus that is quite good.
The sixth song, "Savior", is probably my least favorite song on the CD. The song is introduced with a conversation of some sort, which I always skip over, and the lyrics repeat over and over "until you" get fed up with it and "until you" change the song. The chorus, however, I do happen to enjoy, but not enough to propel the song above any of the other songs on the disk. If you don't mind repetative lyrics ("until you..." leads off most lines of the verses), then this song is actually pretty good.
The seventh song, "From Yesterday", is a beautiful song. If you are familiar with Richard Marx, not necessarily lyrics-wise, but definately the way the first verse is sung reminds me a bit of his voice (which is a great thing, by the way). The chorus sounds nothing like that, however it is amazing; it's another amazing song.
The eigth song, "The Story", is another beautiful song, similar to "From Yesterday". The chorus, which goes "This is the story of my life/These are the lies I have created" and repeats itself once, is performed particularly impressive. The song is great to listen to and is powerful enough to nearly give you goosebumps.
The ninth song, called "R-Evolve", is a good song with nothing special to mention about it, but still a good listen.
The tenth song, and the last one listed, "A Modern Myth", again has lyrics sung as if Richard Marx was a guest vocalist. It is a powerful song, written and performed beautifully.
On to the extra 2 "Hidden Tracks". Untitled, but "Track 11" is a great song to rock out to. I'll be honest, I don't know the lyrics, but I don't care. It's fast and exciting song. "Track 12" I am not too fond of.
The only real downsides to this CD are:
1) Many of the songs have extended introductions that can get quite old quite fast
2) The CD is write protected, so you cannot import directly into iTunes and also have a limited amount of copies that you can make. You can import into iTunes by burning yourself a copy of the CD and then importing THAT CD into it

30 seconds to mars is a rocking band. every song on the cd is amazing. it drives the whole way through. there was not much about the cd i didnt like, except maybe it wasnt long enough. music like that shouldnt end. one of the best cds ive bought in a long time