Belgians like to say that due to the capricious influence of the North Sea they experience "all four seasons every day, from snow to rain to sun."

Maybe that's why expressive pop rockers K's Choice range from intimate acoustic moments to howling indie rock roars on hit songs like "Not An Addict" from their Sony debut Paradise In Me. The dynamics are even more dramatic on their new album, Cocoon Crash.

"I love dynamics," says guitarist Gert Bettens, "I try to translate as much in the music of what I feel in day-to-day life and what I felt when writing a song." Gert writes K's Choice songs, but so does his sister Sarah, a singer with a voice like raw honey.

"Working with Gert is fun," Sarah says, with a bat of her huge Delft-blue eyes. "We write our songs separately but come together to make it what it's finally going to be."

Sarah could pass for a Malibu girl with her cropped bleached hair, sweeping cheekbones, and the dusky tan that flushes her Vermeer skin. Indeed, she's married a Californian, shed her accent, and moved to L.A. Round-faced Gert, who possesses equally huge blue eyes, remains in Antwerp, their hometown, and speaks with a gentle Flemish accent.

Growing up in Belgium, they agree, sheltered them from the pressure American bands feel to adhere to narrow formats. "We have one radio station we liked growing up and they play anything--from hip hop to heavy metal to techno, rock, pop, anything!" says Sarah. "So you don't grow up in formats. You just take a little inspiration from all the American and English music you've heard and create your own thing."

Writing in English came naturally to the duo, who performed acoustically before adding a Belgian guitarist and a Dutch drummer. Gert explains: "Our parents' albums were very melodic pop albums of the late sixties --Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel. Also, most of the songs played on the radio are English. Kids in Belgium start speaking English around ten or eleven. Most movies are in English, too, with subtitles, whereas in France and Germany they're dubbed. So watching TV in Belgium you have an English lesson every night."

Sarah was "always singing as a little kid along with my ABBA and Pointer Sisters records. I didn't realize I could write songs until the last record--it was mainly Gert before that. I was sure it was a coincidence, but I happened to do it again for Cocoon Crash. I still have that feeling that I'll never pull it off again."

After two years of touring with Alanis Morissette, The Verve Pipe, and Tonic, "the US felt like home" so trading in their Belgian producer for Gil Norton (Foo Fighters, Counting Crows, the Pixies) "was a logical step," according to Sarah. "He had a million suggestions we never would've come up with that opened up the songs on Cocoon Crash. We could tell from the first rehearsal that he was great, so we trusted him."

"He understood the broad perspective of our musical influences and didn't just put a little "Gil" stamp on the album. He looks for what's very good in a band and makes it better," Gert states. "This record is a bit more mature and the arrangements are much better, as a result. 'Now Is Mine' is my favorite song on the new album because it's about trying to live in the moment, which is very hard for me. I usually live in the past. And whenever I'm not, I'm living in the future."

Both Gert and Sarah are drawn to Eastern spirituality, probably because of their "old-fashioned Catholic upbringing in Central Europe. The freedom of Buddhism is so much more appealing," Gert says quietly, fingering Fire Under The Snow, a book written by a Tibetan monk who fled from the Chinese invasion.

"I like reading about different religions and philosophies, too, noticing that they all come down to the same things," Sarah says. The band is named after Joseph K., the protagonist in Franz Kafka's The Trial. "Joseph K. doesn't have a lot of choice in the story," Sarah notes.

The contemplative bent of the band's songwriters reveals itself in intelligent lyrics and an honest presentation. "As soon as we started we decided we weren't going to go for any particular image," says Gert. "We just wanted to be ourselves. We wore the same clothes at night on stage that we wore all day long. Now, basically we just wear whatever we think is nice; although if someone is wearing something really ugly, I guess we'll tell him, in a polite kind of way."

DEB DESALVO