alternative press review

The Dream is Over
[Artichoke]
Rating: 9.2

It's been two years since OK Computer was released, and music critics everywhere are still searching for the elusive beast known as "the American Radiohead." I'll sheepishly admit that I employed the latter phrase in my review of Sparklehorse's Good Morning Spider, and I've heard a few bands described as such, but none come as close to Radiohead's erudite melodrama as San Francisco's MK Ultra. Full Review

Nick Mirov
Pitchforkmedia.com

Ultra Magnetic
MK Ultra deliver a sparkling set of rich, disjointed pop.
MK Ultra's songs are magnetic: riffs came flying at them from all direction, and somehow they all stuck. The music is hooky in two senses: catchy and barbed--sharp enough to draw you in, and bent enough to keep you there. Vanderslice's lyrics skip from politics to philosophy to psychodrama, but they're not really about those things. They're made up of discreet, vivid snapshots and vague stories, like clues to a conspiracy that has yet to surface.

Gabriel Roth
San Francisco Bay Guardian

These lads have created what is definitely one of the finest records to come out of San Francisco in ages: The Dream is Over, released at the end of January on Artichoke Records. Full story/interview.

Tim Scanlin
SnackCake!

If you don't like the MK Ultra song "Red Cross" from their forthcoming third album, odds are pretty good you just don't like pop music. They play precariously on that delicate borderwall between progressive pop and high art, alloying with unusual balance what works from both sides of the fence into a simultaneously stimulating, transporting and hooky mix of songs equally at home on the CD shelf next to Pink Floyd's political opus The Final Cut and Pavement's left of the dial landmark Slanted and Enchanted.

Greg Heller
BAM

Noise Pop Tip Sheet 1998
MK Ultra
The Drug: Government LSD
The Show: Consistently Good

Jeff Stark
SF Weekly

MK Ultra is the real deal. The band makes it interesting with irregular pacing, good phrasing, and clear, interesting vocals. It's not surprising that they were hand-picked by Sunny Day Real Estate to open on its current tour.

Seattle Weekly

While MK Ultra could easily get by as a great band of nice, cute guys who
can all sing and play well, they kick my ass by venturing out. They take
influences like country or hip hop, infusing their well-crafted tunes with
loopy excursions. An experimental pop dream led by the charming John
Vanderslice.

Beth Lisick
SF Chronicle On-Line

I don't know how I've managed to exist in this scene for five years without encountering this amazing band. Ultimately, the awesome lyrics and tasteful, understated musicianship of this band remind me of Robyn Hitchcock and his Soft Boys. I'm aware that this is the most uncool reference I could drop in this day and age. And that, my friends, is precisely why I love this band.

Tim Scanlin
SnackCake!

This San Francisco quartet combines creative harmonies (all members sing), curious, brainy lyrics, and unusual instrumental interplay in a way many Portlanders might find reminiscent of Quasi. MK Ultra combines fine songwriting, interesting musical choices and just plain smarts to create a distinct sound that makes you stand up and listen. They should be great live.

Audrey Van Buskirk
Willamette Week (Portland)

It's time for your MK Ultra! The SF pop whiz kids, those mad harmonizers
and audiophiles are out with a new CD entitled "The Dream Is Over." I've
listened to it so many times, I've become an expert on singer/guitarist John Vanderslice's breathing patterns. Kicking off a tour opening for Sub Pop's
Sunny Day Real Estate, our own next Great National Breakthrough Hope demo their infectious, propulsive stylings at the Bottom of the Hill for the loving masses.

Beth Lisick
SF Chronicle On-Line

Ink-Blot Magazine:

Filled with the disaffected sentiments of the average hipster, MK Ultra's third album would be a serious downer if not for its whimsicle pop arrangements and winsome harmonies. The Dream Is Over addresses depressing topics like lost love, lost apartments, and lost opportunities, but where other San Francisco bands, particularly American Music Club, used records as a pulpit for their melancholic musings, this quartet takes a more divergent path. Bright guitars, buoyant rhythms, and overall fluidity counterbalance the gloom and doom. Like Quasi and perhaps XTC, MK Ultra masks the dark undercurrent perfectly, drawing the listeners in closer and closer only to whisper in their ears about life's creulties.

Richard Martin
Seattle Weekly

MK Ultra, a band whose lyrics take center stage, strays from the norm of mindless pop. The incorporation of literary talent combined with creative musicality pervades their work.

Jonathan Hansen
Daily Iowan

MK Ultra make modern pop music as buoyant, diverse, and catchy as it comes, tweaking the formulas with a child scientist's sense of the absurd while never forgetting that a tune requires melody, harmony, internal rhythm, and outward dynamics to reach the listener. This arty bunch spin surreal tales of misadventure, unrequited lust, and millennial blues.

Fred Mills
Puncture

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack makes for one of the most intriguing things I've heard in awhile. Imagine an intellectual version of Pavement; history grad students, if you will. Repeated listens reveal subtle hooks, and a sound that can't be described in limited space.

Mike Shanley
Discourse

The words are lovingly wrapped in completely edible melodies executed with sufficient skill so as not to intrude upon the melodramatic dioramas created by a deft turn of phrase. MK Ultra paint their landscapes in mostly gray shade variations, but even so, the music is rich in its pop-sense complexity.

John Chandler
The Rocket (Seattle)

MK Ultra is one of those secret cool indie bands. Their current album of smart, twisted, guitar driven love songs will be listened to constantly by fans around the country.

Michael Hukin
The Stranger (Seattle)

Recalls the pleasures of early Costello and Talking Heads, all chunky staccato riffing and akimbo rhythms, with added niceties of overlapping vocal harmonies...plus loads of melodic excursions that showcase the band’s abilities as arrangers and harmonizers.

Fred Mills
Puncture

Hot guitar gigs at SXSW included Man...or Astroman, The Mermen, MK Ultra...

Guitar Player(!)

This band is well worth seeing live, and there’s not an Athens musician around that wouldn’t appreciate some aspect of this engaging ensemble.

The Athens Observer

Critics Pick NXNW 1996

Willamette Week
(Portland)

Brainy skewed guitar pop...impossible to turn off.

The Aquarian

Four Stars. Mk Ultra has everything it takes to be a great British new wave/punk band: power pop harmonies, a neat bag of experimental studio tricks, smart lyrics, and short songs.

BAM

A power-pop band with art rock sensibilities, MK Ultra veers back and forth between snappy rhythms and bursts of guitar improvisation...what a nifty surprise, and right in our backyard.

The Oakland Tribune

Here are some lovely NoisePop photos by Peter Ellenby