I must admit, I thought these guys more or less sucked the first time I heard their debut album. I just thought of them as another ordinary Linkin Park-ripoff band, although they were fronted by actor Jared Leto. The more I listened to it, however, the more I started to accept them as a distinct entity and not as an imitation of other similar predecessor bands (Linkin Park, Chevelle, A Perfect Circle, Orgy, etc.) Sure, the first two songs, "Capricorn" and "Edge of the Earth" are typical electro-Linkin Park crunchers with the basic soft-verse-loud-chorus formulae, but the similar "Buddha for Mary" has such a crunching, powerful chorus that it makes you momentarily forget that it's kind of a generic song with embarrassing lyrics ("Mary was a different girl, had a thing for astronauts") at the beginning. "Fallen" has a pounding drum intro and a strong, hooky chorus, and "Oblivion" has a unique harmonious echoing and stand-alone guitar licks. The middle tracks are fairly forgettable fare, but my patience paid off as the best songs on the album come toward the end. Speaking of the end "End of the Beginning" sports a cool opening guitar and drum fill before going straight into a powerful chorus, and "93 Million Miles" started off with 80s new-wave-ish verses before going into a dark, screaming chorus. "Year Zero" is also a standout track with its eerie mix of what sounded like Alice in Chains meshed with Linkin Park. While listening to 30 Seconds to Mars I realized it's unfair to simply dismiss a band just because their sound is similar to a number of bands that preceded them. Besides that Jared Leto is hot - Alexander thought he was pretty great.