30 Seconds To Mars - A Beautiful Lie (Limited Deluxe Edition) (2007)

A Beautiful Lie is the second album by American alternative rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars. It was released on August 30, 2005 through Virgin Records and was produced by Josh Abraham. The album produced four singles, "Attack", "The Kill", "From Yesterday", and "A Beautiful Lie"; of which three of those four singles managed to chart within the top 30 on the US Modern Rock chart, with "The Kill" and "From Yesterday" entering the top three. A Beautiful Lie received positive reviews from music critics, many praising the album for the band's new sound from their debut album.

The success of the album had helped the band receive accolades for their singles such as "The Kill" and "From Yesterday". A Beautiful Lie differs notably from the band's self-titled debut album, both musically and lyrically. Whereas the eponymous concept album's lyrics focus on human struggle and astronomical themes, A Beautiful Lie's lyrics are "personal and less cerebral". Additionally, this was the first and only album to feature bassist Matt Wachter, whom left the band in 2007.

A Beautiful Lie received generally positive reviews from music critics. Jon Wiederhorn from Revolver noted that "intensity and passion clearly inform the textural hard rock of A Beautiful Lie," which "boasts echoing riffs, moody bass lines, and strong vocal melodies that evoke a radio-friendly mix of Staind, Nine Inch Nails, U2, and The Cure." Jaan Uhelszki of the San Francisco Chronicle described the album as "full of ferocious electronics, overcaffeinated guitar lines and anxious drumming paired with brainy, brittle but emotionally austere lyrics." Nylon magazine called it "an album that is digestible without losing the rough-around-the-edges appeal that the band's rapidly expanding fan base crave." Alternative Addiction commented that the band recorded "an album with a handful of very impressive tracks," beginning with "Attack", the first song on the record, which "soars sonically with processing mixed and forceful vocals."

Christa L. Titus from Billboard felt that the band "proved its potency" with songs like "The Kill", "Was It a Dream?", and "From Yesterday", and praised Leto's vocal ability by writing, "he alternates between cathartic shouts and a tantalizing croon that shows his capable vocal range." Kaj Roth from Melodic praised the sonic variety and summarized the record as "an impressive list of anthemic rock songs." Davey Boy of Sputnikmusic echoed this sentiment, writing that A Beautiful Lie "works well as an album due to greater variety". He also found the record "a more controlled effort" than the band's debut album 30 Seconds to Mars (2002). Kerrang! magazine called it a "great album to close your eyes and fall in to, an anthemic eruption of upfront emotion."

In a mixed review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic wrote that the "band floats out of time, inspired heavily by '90s alt rock but too clean, heavy, and facile to truly be part of that tradition, yet too indebted to the past to sound like part of the 2000s, either." He found the band "capable enough at shifting from tense quiet verses to piledriving, heavy choruses, but they borrow the worst habits from all their favorite groups, and then assemble them in insufferably earnest fashion, playing clichés as if they were revelations." Christian Hoard of Rolling Stone stated, "despite some credible modern-rock tunes, Leto's self-involved myopia guarantees that his band's second disc is long on melodrama."

At the Billboard Music Awards, "The Kill" and "From Yesterday" were nominated in the category of Modern Rock Single of the Year in 2006 and 2007, respectively. In 2007, A Beautiful Lie was named Best Album by Rock on Request. Thirty Seconds to Mars received the Kerrang! Award for Best Single in two consecutive years for "The Kill" and "From Yesterday" in 2007 and 2008. Metal Edge ranked A Beautiful Lie one of the top 10 albums of 2005. Melodic included it among the best albums of the year. Alternative Addiction ranked it at number six on their list of 20 best albums of the year. In 2009, Kerrang! listed A Beautiful Lie at number four on their list of the 50 best albums of the decade. The album was included in Rock Sound's 101 Modern Classics list at number 78.

Jared Leto – vocals, guitar, programming
Shannon Leto – drums, percussion
Tomo Miličević – guitar, synthesizer
Matt Wachter – bass guitar, synthesizer

Additional musicians
Miguel Atwood-Ferguson – viola on track 10
Caroline Campbell – violin on track 10
Steve Dress – strings contractor and double bass on track 10
Vanessa Freebairn-Smith – cello on track 10
Oliver Goldstein – additional synthesizer on tracks 1, 6–7
Neel Hammond – violin on track 10
Wataru Hokoyama – string arranger on track 10
Jeremy Rubolino – programming on track 12
Matt Serletic – piano on track 3

Track List:
01. Attack (03:09)
02. A Beautiful Lie (04:05)
03. The Kill (03:51)
04. Was It A Dream? (04:15)
05. The Fantasy (04:28)
06. Savior (03:11)
07. From Yesterday (04:08)
08. The Story (03:55)
09. R-Evolve (03:58)
10. A Modern Myth (14:14)
11. Battle Of One (02:47)
12. Hunter (03:53)
13. The Kill (Rebirth) (03:40)
14. A Beautiful Lie (Acoustic) (03:41)