Review: Mindless Self Indulgence's If

“There is nothing you can do that I have not already done to myself” begins Mindless Self Indulgence’s If, and truer words cannot be spoken by a man who’s drank his own urine on stage. For more than ten years, MSI has invented a genre of their own, which can only be described as ‘Sounds like Mindless Self Indulgence.’ A blend of hardcore punk rock’s fury, the oppressively electronic atmosphere of dubstep, and lyrics so vulgar that they make the super-sexualized MTV rap videos look like a preschool in the bible belt.

In contrast to their other albums, If is possibly the most straightforward one that MSI has created. Gone are the two-minute explosions of Ritalin-deprived noise from their previous works in favor for a much more conventional verse – chorus – bridge song structure. Lyrics are still the same gigantic middle finger to anyone and everyone – fans and groupies especially. There’s a song specifically about boners. A song specifically about getting high and rocking out. And most of the rest of the album is about fucking everything that moves, and I am especially a fan of Issue’s chorus: It’s 3 am / She won’t put out / Let’s go make out with her friends / Make out with her friends’ friends.

The album is well-made, with the melodic Never Wanted to Dance and the directly disrespectful Bomb This Track standing out as the high points, but the real problem is that as a whole, If just isn’t as good as the work that MSI has done in the past.

Their well-established attention-deficit musical style just isn’t present on this album of conventionally written songs that just happen to have all the musical elements we’re used to hearing from this group. There’s none of the outrageous shock value present in this album (Frankenstein Girl’s ‘Faggot’ comes to mind) or the outright abuse of their fans (Stupid Motherfucker off of You’ll Rebel to Anything) that is present in abundance at their live performances.

There’s not much left to say about If. It isn’t a bad album at all, but it lacks the, I guess, charm of their earlier music. The lyrics are too focused on the well-traveled topics of debauchery and drugs and rock stardom, and less on the self-aggrandizing two minute tantrums that launched them to fame. I don’t think that MSI has run out of ways to push the envelope, because there are comedians like Louis CK whose claim to fame is no different. I think that If is simply an attempt at making a normal record by a band who’s fought tooth and nail for years to be anything but.

So check it out if you want some very abrasive punk-techno-rock. But don’t bother bracing your sensibilities, they’re in no real danger here.