Brad Purvis (bass), Evan Rehill (guitar and vocals), and Mike Shoun (drums) write on their Web site, "Caesura play uptempo rock and love to enjoy themselves." If "uptempo rock" is directly proportional to "enjoying themselves," then the members are really, really enjoying themselves. On their second full-length, Wallpaper the Witness, the San Francisco trio don't stop for breath until about the eighth track, and even then, their down tempo is short-lived. Much of the album is what my sister calls "Stravinsky." How are postmodern rockers related to a classical composer? In 1913, Igor Stravinsky caused an uproar when, at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, he unabashedly premiered The Rite of Spring using the high register of the bassoon – something never heard of or done before. Composers walked out and fights erupted. While Caesura's temperament reflects Stravinsky's, the trio's rule-breaking involves ignoring melody patterns. Instruments are clashed and blurred against each other; the occasional swirly guitar takes center stage. Rehill's muffled, dramatic screams burst in short segments. Linear notes are prolonged and converge in sharp, abrupt endings. Tracks mirror each other, only rearranged and slightly repatterned. Song titles don't always seem to fit the music, as in "Autograph," which sounds like a colonial battle march. The album isn't easily agreeable, but maybe in another century I'd think differently. (Stephanie Laemoa)

Moore Brothers
Now Is the Time for Love (Plain Recordings)

The Moore Brothers – don't hate them because they sound beautiful. Yes, it's damn close to Simon and Garfunkel and even Seals and Crofts. I guess we can be thankful they decided not to call their group Thom and Greg. That just sounds like a packaged-fruit-and-nuts company. As a matter of fact, there's absolutely no reason to hate them at all – the skintight harmonies, perfectly complementary single acoustic guitar, and sighing major-to-minor shifts cry out to be cherished, despite the occasional displays of tuff 'tude. Check the heady, "I Am the Cosmos"-like number invoking everybody's speed metal godfathers ("Mint Mouth Motorhead") – just who do they think they're fooling? At times the brothers' interwoven harmonies seemed so fragile that I took care not to jostle the boom box, afraid of spooking the little Moores in there as they inched forth vocally, worrying, on "New for You," "It hurts so bad / Hurts so bad / Hurts so bad / To know that / Somebody else / Gets to be new / For you / I can never be new / For you." Yet what's really new, amid these almost unadorned songs, is the fact that the Moore Brothers have become so utterly confident in dreaming out loud. A sublime time. (Kimberly Chun)

Mail stuff for review to Sarah Han, Bay Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., S.F. CA 94107.