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"On the first record I created a world, then hid behind it," Leto says. "With A Beautiful Lie, it was time to take a more personal and less cerebral approach. Although this record is still full of conceptual elements and thematic ideas it is ultimately much more wrapped around the heart than the head. It's about brutal honesty, growth, change. It's an incredibly intimate look into a life that is in the crossroads. A raw emotional journey. A story of life, love, death, pain, joy, and passion. Of what it is to be human."

In addition to being more lyrically direct, A Beautiful Lie has undergone a musical transformation as well. Progressive, multi-tracked passages have been replaced by leaner and far more impacting constructs and some of the eclecticism has been focused in order to compliment the honesty of the songwriting. "We wanted to focus on the insides of the song," Jared says. "To cut away anything extraneous. To get to the truth of it all. For us, it wasn't about how much we could do but about how little. That was the beginning of a lot of challenges. I worked hard to create something very special and different the first time around, sonically and conceptually. And that first CD will always be that, no matter what. But, in order to move forward you have to leave some things behind. That was not always the easiest thing to do. In some ways, it was the birth of something new and the death of something old."

The results are transcendent. The first single, "Attack," is a dynamic expression of rebirth and renewal that features energetic keyboards, vast, abrasive guitars and infectious vocals, which soar from a pain-stricken wail to an intimate whisper. "The Kill" is more reflective, driven by beautifully complex guitars and a primal beat that segue   into an epic, anthemic refrain, and "Was it a Dream" is an intimate, melodic, and surreal experience, pulsing with a moody rhythm that's equally redolent of the Cure, and U2.

"We needed this album to be something that re-set the bar for us," Leto says. "As proud as we are of our previous efforts, I really wanted to destroy the first record by making a second one. The last thing we wanted to do was make the same record twice."

"It was important for it to be emotionally accessible, and also stripped down and raw," says Jared's brother and drummer Shannon. "We needed this record to sound really genuine and honest."