When is a metal band not metal? Possibly when it takes the chamber music route, as Cauche Mar does here on their debut EP. It’s not that this sextet doesn’t rock—drummer “Matt” and bassist “Ellis” pound away at the beat with a sort of thrash-groove punkish hybrid that anyone from Metairie can slip right into. It’s the edges that are airbrushed. This is the first metal album in a long time where the guitars are almost an afterthought; there’s still a roar, but it’s more of a backdrop, while most of that all-important top end has been taken over by violins, cellos and piano. Sort of like Rasputina with Slayer bleeding through the next room over.

It actually works really well—they’re just replacing one kind of drama with another—and much of the fury and all of the gothic sadness remain intact. You still won’t confuse these guys with the doom-metal band of the same name out of Montreal: the NOLA Cauche Mar self-identify as a “folk crust metal orchestra,” which is as good a description as any, and their particular corner of the apocalypse is rooted in real life concerns (“Slavery=Caste=Class,” “Victims of War”), while their delicate side has more than a touch of the Parisian coffeehouse and “Ode to Bitches” is about as brutal as an orchestra can get. If they ever figure out how to hide all the seams, hunker down.