Indeed, Section members point out that their string-tribute albums are nothing like, say, the old Boston Pops renditions of the Beatles. The Section Quartet doesn’t put out pretty, periwigged versions of other people’s songs; the group rocks in its own right. These are not covers; they’re creative interpretations.

“The difference is attitude,” says Chen. “We have bad attitude.”

“It’s the difference between the Lawrence Welk Band and Iron Maiden,” Gorfain says, making it clear that the Section Quartet sides with the venerable British metal band Iron Maiden.

“One thing we don’t do is take a rock song by somebody like Radiohead and make it into the style of Chopin or Bach or whatever. We try to keep the essence of the original song, even if we’re adding harmonies or dissonances or slightly different rhythms than were in the first version.”

Making the textures more complex is one way Gorfain’s arrangements compensate for the loss of vocals and percussion. “But it helps if you have a harmonically complex song to begin with,” Gorfain says. “I enjoy adding different kinds of harmonies, but it has to be appropriate and interesting and work with the songs in question.”

For the Section Quartet, maintaining a strong rhythmic groove sometimes means slapping the instruments or clapping, but more often than not it’s simply a matter of incisive rhythmic playing.

Linda Perry, a Grammy-nominated songwriter and A-list album producer, has worked with the Section Quartet on several projects, including the still-untitled upcoming CD the group just recorded to launch its new contract with Decca. Perry says the whole group can play like an electric guitar, but often the members break down into roles paralleling those of a band.

For example, she identifies violist Leah Katz as the bass player. “She’s got a great sensibility,” says Perry, “and her character goes well with Richard [on cello], who works like the drummer, holding down the beat.”

A lot of what the group members do on their albums is straightforward, one-to-a-part playing that they could handle live. Sometimes, though, as on some tracks of its new Decca disc, the group gets into creative overdubbing and other effects. Consider the Section Quartet’s forthcoming version of “Juicebox” by the Strokes. Says Perry, “The quartet turned into a whole drum set. The cello was the kick drum, the viola was tom-toms, the second violin was the snare, the first violin was the hi-hat.

“We created a beat with that to play the song over, and it came out brilliant.”