While making their sixth album, Thirty Seconds to Mars—the brother duo of Jared and Shannon Leto—decided to rethink what their band meant, which resulted in the brothers engaging in their artistic version of Truth or Dare. The two would send ideas back and forth, getting bolder as their collaboration continued, almost daring each other to redefine Thirty Seconds to Mars in more audacious ways. The result is an 11-song set that sharpens the band's trademark intensity into pointed songs that are short in length—the longest track clocks in just under the 3:30 mark—but long on emotion. “For us, the bravest thing to do was to make an album like this,” Jared Leto told Zane Lowe. “I could have gone back and made a 12-minute prog rock song or done something really esoteric.” Thirty Seconds to Mars makes the most of their songs' brief timeframes, exploring new motifs while doubling down on the visceral feelings that have filled arenas for two-plus decades. “Life Is Beautiful” begins like a ghostly hymn, then swells into a stomping 21st-century modern rock track, with an insistent refrain urging the listener to “rise up again.” “Get Up Kid” is part power ballad, part emo-rap wail, Leto coaxing someone whose “heart ain't home” to keep going despite a crushing heartbreak. The regretful “Lost These Days” begins as an acoustic ballad and then begins to glitch, with the electronic effects encroaching as the song progresses—until its closing seconds, when a forceful dance beat takes over and yanks the song out of its haze. “It does feel like a new beginning to us,” Leto said. “It's important, as you continue to be an artist, to be willing to destroy a bit of yourself—to let go of the past in order to move forward.”